


Unspoken Rules

by AgingPhangirl (Madophelia)



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Bottom!Dan, Dom/sub Undertones, First Time, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Light Bondage, M/M, Pining, Smut, The Amazing Tour Is Not on Fire, top!phil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-09-22 12:53:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9608408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madophelia/pseuds/AgingPhangirl
Summary: They have rules.1. They don't kiss2. They don't talk about it3. They aren't exclusive4. They don't get attached5. It's over when the tour isAs long as they abide by the rules, no one gets hurt. Simple, right?





	1. They don't kiss

It wasn’t a rule exactly, no one wrote it down and referred back to it every time they made eye contact across a room, it just… was. The same as all of their rules. 

They come to the decision almost like a business transaction, brought on by too much darkness, too much discussion about the ejaculation habits of vampires in a dark corner of their tour bus, and perhaps too much Malibu. 

It is probably the drink that does it. The burn of alcohol mixed with coconut, Phil doesn’t really like it and it’s just bringing back memories for Dan of the early days at house parties with Phil. He sips from the bottle before passing it back, feeling the burn go down as he remembers the times when they used to press up close like this. Not because they were forced into a cramped ‘bedroom’ on a tour bus, but because back then they didn’t have a measured distance between them, they spent their time in each other’s orbit, not worrying about the ever-present vlogging cameras and millions of prying eyes on social media waiting to pounce at the merest hint of anything between them.

Not that there ever had been. It would definitely have been too much to hope for that they have been together all this time, to be best friends, business partners, housemates and lovers. When had that ever worked for anyone? 

No, it was much better that they’d left out that particular part of their relationship, even if Dan was pretty sure that at one point, early on, that’s exactly where it had been headed. He could only guess where it had gotten derailed, but it had probably declined as the subscriber count grew. Dan knew it wasn’t exactly a fair trade, but he’d take it.

“This is awful,” Phil says, spluttering and passing the bottle back to Dan. 

“It’s not too bad.” Dan argues, “We drank that whole bottle at that party once.” 

“You drank most of it,” Phil insists, “But it was just as horrible back then if I recall.” 

“The sleeping conditions were better though.” 

“Didn’t you pass out in the space between the sofa and the radiator?” 

“Yes.” 

“How was that better?” 

Dan laughs, “You’ve not actually tried sleeping in one of those bunks have you?” 

Phil laughs too, one hand over his mouth the other accepting the bottle back from Dan. It is horrible, but they keep drinking.

The alcohol is starting to buzz in Dan’s veins, and Phil is slightly slanted on the bed, tipped sideways with his knees bent so that they are lightly brushing Dan’s. Dan thinks it might be the same for Phil, that the alcohol is starting to thread through him too. Dan’s head feels slightly thick, like a fog has descended over the room. It is at hours like this that bad decisions are made, can be whispered into the space between them, to be carried away with the night should they wish them to be.

“Fucking rock paper scissors” Dan grumbles, taking a swig from the bottle. 

“Stay here then,” Phil shrugs, “might as well.” 

Dan doesn’t think about it, not past the notion that he is vaguely comfortable where he is and that he really doesn’t want to squeeze into the bunk again, let alone drunkenly climb up to it, he has visions of kicking Martyn in the face on his way up. All in all, staying where he was sounds like the lesser of so many evils. 

“‘Kay” Dan says, his head lolling back into the pillow. 

It wasn’t like they’d never shared a bed before. But it was usually born of nights when they fell asleep watching something side by side on Phil’s bed, or pressed together in Dan’s single bed in his uni halls. That had only happened the one time though, when they’d fallen asleep because Dan was ill and Phil wouldn’t leave without knowing he was alright. It was a good job really, a few hours later Dan had been diving across him to puke in his waste paper bin and he was pretty glad Phil was around to call the ambulance.

But they’d never invited the other to stay before, it just sort of… happened.

“It must be awful being Angel” Phil says suddenly before Dan can think about it. Instead, he watches as Phil gestures to the screen with the bottle.

They aren’t drinking from it now, Phil is just holding it between his hands, resting it back on his hip. Instead, the box-set of Buffy plays in the background and they both stare at the screen, mindlessly taking in episodes they’d seen a bunch of times. 

The light has died at the windows, the day completely giving away to night. They haven’t turned the light on so the flickering screen is the only thing that fills the room. Dan looks at Phil’s profile in the white light and huffs a breath into the small space between them.

“Yeah, completely awful being a good-looking badass with a hot girlfriend” Dan snorts, “Wouldn’t want that.” 

“No,” Phil says, kicking out at him lightly, “Like, he can’t come can he?” 

“Come where?” Dan says, the meaning lost on him.

Phil is silent for a moment, shoulder jumping with a giggle, “Well, I assume anywhere. It might only be limited to coming inside Buffy but I’m pretty sure they’d have discovered that loophole if it was a thing. So I’m going with anywhere.” 

“Oh my…. God, Phil!” Dan says, sitting up slightly, “That is disgusting.” 

“What?” Phil’s face goes blank, innocent, as if he doesn’t know what he said. He’s playing AmazingPhil now, everyone’s favourite Angel Bean. 

“And people think I’m the corrupt one,” Dan says, flopping back down again, “But you, you’re something else.” 

“I’m merely pointing out, Daniel, that it must be a pretty sad existence, not being able to… you know, with another person.” 

Dan ponders it for a moment. “Do you think he can do it by himself? Is that a true moment of happiness?”

Phil smirks. “It is when I do it.” 

“Ew, god.” Dan says, reaching over for the bottle. “No more drink for you.” 

Dan takes one last swig from the bottle before feeling around the bed for the cap. He would just leave it on the nightstand but the last time he’d put down a uncapped bottle on the bus they’d hit a pothole and he’d been covered in diet coke. 

“Where’s the…” He says, hand grasping blindly in the dark. As he swipes his hand across the sheet his fingers glance against Phil’s thigh, the cotton of his pyjamas soft under Dan’s fingers but the muscle of him solid and hard. “Sorry” he says, but his fingers spread of their own volition, lingering in Phil’s warmth. 

“I don’t have it.” Phil says, “Pretty sure I left it over there.” he flicks a hand in the direction of the shelf next to the bed. 

Dan retracts his hand quickly, mumbling another apology as he gropes for the cap on the shelf. Sure enough he finds it in no time and screws it tightly to the top of the bottle, placing it horizontal on the floor. The worse that would happen now is that it would roll around if the bus was jostled, but with the clothing littering the floor, it is unlikely to move very far. 

“Could you do it?” Phil asks when Dan is tentatively laid back down next to him, sure to keep that measured distance between them again. 

The alcohol is playing with Dan’s head now, he’s feeling like he did years ago, lounging in Phil’s bedroom when he was eighteen, nervous and aware of his limbs. Conscious of Phil in ways he hasn’t been since then. 

“Do what?” 

“Not... you know. I think I’d just risk being evil.” 

Dan laughs, “I don’t know. I’m pretty much living that life now.” 

“What?” 

“Seriously, Phil? When was the last time I got any?” 

“How would I know?” Phil asks, “It’s not like I keep track.” 

Dan nods in the dark, because of course Phil doesn’t. Not like Dan does. 

“Well, it’s been a while. A long while. A fucking long long while.” 

Phil is silent next to him for a moment, thinking. 

“No moments of true happiness by yourself?” he jokes. Dan thinks he might have been intending to say something else but settled for the joke instead. 

“Not since coming on this tour bus.” Dan says, “not like I’ve got my private little room back here like you.”

Dan tries not to think of the implications of that sentence. That it means Phil has laid here and taken himself in his hand while Dan slept on the other side of the wall. It was the same at home, Dan supposes, but it feels different when he thinks of himself lying awake and desperate while Phil spent his private moments here, touching himself in the bed Dan is sat on. 

It feels like missing out, and Dan’s drunken brain isn’t sure why.

“Well you know I wouldn't mind if you ever want to…”

Dan whips his head round and Phil giggles. 

“I meant swap rooms for a night, so you can have some privacy.” Phil clarifies. 

“Oh,” Dan breathes. He isn't sure what he'd thought Phil meant and he doesn't want to dwell on it too much. Down that path madness lies.

“What did you think I was going to say?” 

Fuck Phil Lester and his ability to read Dan's mind.

Dan shrugs, but it is a gesture Phil would probably only feel rather than see. They are slipping closer now, Dan's shoulder pressed up against Phil’s. The bed is wide enough that they should be able to lay in their own personal space but they keep breaking through it, darkness and Malibu pulling them in.

“Did you think I was going to offer to get you off?” 

It’s strange to hear that from Phil’s mouth, an alien phrase that feels misplaced. They'd always tiptoed around everything before, avoided referring to it directly, so Dan wonders what about this particular night is making them so frank with each other. It couldn't just be the cramped space and coconut liquor. 

“What the fuck?” Dan settles for saying, presuming that sums up his thoughts on the matter.

“Wouldn't be the weirdest proposition” Phil insists. He isn't meeting Dan's eye, instead he’s staring at the screen, pretending to watch. 

Dan doesn’t dare reply. This is going against everything they'd silently promised not to to talk about. They don't bring sex here, between them. They left it somewhere in the Manchester flat when the prying eyes and whispering voices got too much. How were they supposed to navigate the choppy waters of whatever it was between them with so many onlookers claiming they held the map? 

It was too difficult so they'd come to a mutual yet silent agreement that sex was to be left clean off the table, tucked away, unspoken. 

Maybe it’s the dark, or the rumble of the bus in the background. Maybe it’s the flicker of the screen or the warmth in their cheeks from drinking straight from the bottle. Whatever it is Phil had just taken sex out of the tight packaging they'd put it into all those years ago and spread it out before them again.

Dan should probably examine it, wonder at why after all this time it is back here, but he doesn't. 

“Oh yeah?” he says instead.

“No, I mean. It's just a helping hand. You know, in times of crisis. It can't be good for you bottling it all up like that.”

Dan's head is swimming and he shuffles down against the pillow, tipping himself towards Phil.

Dan blames the late hour and the way Phil smells of coconut. He blames the rocking of the bed beneath them and the warmth of his best friend’s body not a few inches away from him. He blames anything but himself for the low deep frisson of want that settles in his abdomen. 

“You...I mean, can't be, you know… good for you either.” Dan mutteres. He’s usually the eloquent one, words don't usually fail him but all he can do was mumble back at Phil leaning ever closer. 

“Not for either of us,” Phil agrees and reaches out to place a hand on Dan's hip. 

Dan watches as Phil tentatively spreads his fingers, ducking his pinky under the waistband of Dan's sweatpants. 

Dan realises that he’s already hard and he isn't quite sure when it had happened. He feels like he’s eighteen again and laying in a bed with his best friend who's proximity is making tremors run through him. Phil is looking at him like he did back then too, eyes blown dark under his lashes, a ghost of want tracked over his features. How had Dan resisted it then? Except that he hadn't known what he was doing, hadn't really wanted to give a name to the dark thing he felt. Now, Dan isn't sure he gives a fuck about naming it or resisting it.

“Are you sure?” Phil asks sliding his hand the tiniest of fractions lower and meeting Dan's eyes with a sly grin. 

Dan knows Phil has had a fair amount of sex. He's heard him through their apartment wall on numerous occasions and he’s pretty sure Phil has a fair amount of experience in that area. He didn't account for Phil being a fucking tease. 

He’s almost embarrassed at the way his voice sounds, cracked like he’s already broken. “Please.”

The self satisfied smirk is still on Phil’s face as he finally strokes his hand down over Dan's skin and into his clothes. 

He has his hand around Dan in seconds and Dan can't stop to ponder the precision as he hisses through his teeth and feels his thoughts spiral away from him.

“Fuck, Phil. Have pity.”

But Phil doesn't. He is moving his hand achingly slow but with such deft fingers that Dan is panting and sweating in minutes. Phil waits until the muscles in Dan's lower stomach started to tense, till his thighs are shaking before moving away, swiping a thumb over the head of Dan's cock as he does. 

Dan should have been embarrassed at the whine of protest that escapes him, but he isn't entirely aware of making it. 

“I know I said helping hand” Phil whispers, “But I'd really like to suck you off now.” 

“Fuck” Dan says again.

“Is that a yes?” Phil rumbles, already gripping Dan's sweats and tugging them down. 

“Yes” Dan chokes, “Please.”

When the cold air hits Dan's cock, he spares a brief moment to realise his best friend is going to blow him in the back of a moving tour bus before he feels wet heat engulf him and his thoughts are replaced by a loud moan. 

“Oh goddamn shit fuck.” Dan groans as Phil’s tongue swirl around him and he applies just the right pressure and there. “Where the fuck did you learn that?”l

Phil glances up at him before removing his mouth “Do you really want to know?” 

“No no don't fucking stop.” Dan's hand fists in the sheets below him and his stomach hurts from resisting the urge to shove his fingers into Phil’s hair and thrust upward.

“You swear alot.”

“Does that fucking surprise you?” Dan asks incredulously wondering why they were now having a chat instead of Phil doing that thing with his tongue again. 

“Just commenting.” Phil murmurs, settling back down “might want to keep it down though.” 

“Right,” Dan nods “right.” 

But it isn't as easy as that, as soon as Phil ducks his head back down to envelope Dan's length, Dan lets out another moan and flings his head back against the wall. 

Phil’s hand shoots up and slams down over Dan's mouth, but he doesn't stop. 

Dan pants against Phil’s fingers, feeling all the delicious moist heat of Phil’s mouth on him. He can't help thrusting slightly, feeling Phil’s lips stretch around him to accommodate the movement. 

He can feel the fire burning in his belly, the humidity in the air between them rising so that each breath in through his nose is thick and he can barely get enough oxygen. 

He’s dizzy and trembling and squirming on the bed. His hand has unconsciously gravitated towards Phil’s hair and he is gripping tightly, fucking into Phil’s mouth. 

Despite this, Phil has all the control. His hand is firmly over Dan's mouth and the other is wrapped tightly over Dan's hip so he can't thrust too far. Phil is letting Dan fuck his mouth but only far enough that the want burns through them both. 

And suddenly Phil lifts his head again, pressing down the hand on Dan's hip to steady him. The noise Dan makes behind Phil’s palm isn't missed by either of them this time. 

“Shit” Phil swears, “You sound so hot like that.” 

He tips his head sideways as if contemplating something then lifts his hand from Dan's mouth. 

“Are you going to be quiet?”

Dan nods, anything anything to get Phil’s mouth back around him.

“Good. Lick.” 

Phil holds his hand in front of Dan and watches as Dan shamelessly licks a wet striped up Phil’s palm, sucking lightly on the tip of one finger as he finishes. 

It is Phil’s turn to groan then, before thrusting his now wet hand into his own pants and stroking himself. 

Dan watches as Phil touches himself and takes Dan back into his mouth as though it is the best thing in the world. 

The sight and sensation are almost too much, feeling the vibration of a moan around his cock and seeing Phil’s eyes flutter closed as if trying to compose himself. Phil is less vocal which means the noises he is making are low and resonant in the small space. 

Dan tries to hold it together, he really does. But it has been so long and Phil is moving his tongue in just the right way. By the time Phil lifts the hand from Dan's hip and slips low to press against a heated finger his entrance, Dan is gone. 

He bucks and moans loudly, throwing his head against the wall with such a force that the thud echoes around the room and Dan isn't sure if the stars he is seeing are from the impact or the fact that Phil is swallowing around him, hollowing his cheeks and working Dan through his orgasm. 

Dan is vaguely aware of Phil coming too, squeezing his eyes shut and allowing a look of pure pleasure to wash over him. Dan can't be completely sure but it might be the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. He’s annoyed that he hadn't been the direct cause of it. 

“Sorry,” Dan says as they come back round. 

Phil waves a dismissive hand- the same one that had been pressed to Dan's hip- and reaches for the wet wipes they both keep in their toiletry bags because the shower on the bus is impractical. 

He doesn't say anything as he passes one over to Dan and begins to clean himself up. The silence is deafening as they finish and shuffle back into pyjamas. 

They lay next to each other again in a perfect mimic of their earlier position, but with everything changed. 

“I should have... I mean sorry I got so… lost there are the end.” 

If Phil is affected by Dan's choice of words he doesn't let on. 

“I wasn't complaining,” he says instead, grinning as though it is perfectly normal to suck your best friend's dick because you're both bored. 

“Do you want me to go?” Dan asks, instead of asking what he wants to. Like what the hell had happened and where do they go from here and what it all means in the grand scheme of a dying universe. 

“Why would I?” Phil asks, as if genuinely perplexed 

“Well, you know.”

“This doesn't have to be awkward, Dan.” Phil reassures him with a pat on the shoulder “you feel better now don't you? Just go to sleep.”

Dan does feel better. Physically at least. The rest will work itself out, they'd always managed to navigate around each other before. Slipping from long distance friends to actual friends with ease, from friends to housemates and housemates to business partners. 

What’s one more element? Nothing has to change because they've pressed together once, sweaty and wanting in a small space. Maybe it is, Dan thinks as he settles down to sleep, just a helping hand in a time of crisis. A one-time deal that doesn't need to change anything at all.


	2. They don't talk about it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the amazing response to this. 
> 
> This was meant to be a quick drabble to curb my phan smut needs but... now I've planned 6 chapters and I'm not sorry. 
> 
> Enjoy!

It's not exactly true, they do talk about it, but only while it's happening. 

The next morning Dan had woken first, early morning light seeping in through the window, casting a soft pink light over Phil as he slept soundly beside him. 

They hadn't descended into cuddling in the night, or drifted any closer than they had been when they'd fallen asleep a few hours earlier. But Dan was comfortable, stretched out in a way he hadn't been for a few weeks.

He's almost red faced in remembering the previous night, hot in his cheeks but guilt laying heavy like a stone. He's ashamed of how much he'd wanted it, how he acted, but he's even more ashamed of how much he still does. He has to look away from Phil and take some deep breaths, rearranging his hardening cock in his pants, applying light pressure and hissing through his teeth.

Not wanting to linger and be tempted to make more of his ever growing problem, Dan takes the opportunity of wakefulness to slip out of bed and to climb back into his bunk, thinking that while he knew nothing was weird about what had happened last night- at least that's what he was telling himself- the others on this bus might not be so forgiving and he doesn't want to deal with questioning eyes as he leaves Phil’s room. 

Dan is only mildly hungover. Enough to recall everything from the previous night in a haze, understanding the logic of it in only a relative sense, how it had seemed like a suitable solution to their tour-induced celibacy under the blanket of night and alcohol. In the cold, pink light of early day, Dan can understand how they reached that outcome, but knows he wouldn't have let it get quite as far had he been sober. 

He starts remembering the details then; the feeling of Phil’s hand over his mouth as the tension built, the look on Phil’s face as he came, the sound of his own moans loud in the small space. 

He wonders, briefly, if anyone had heard them but finds he can't bring himself to care when the mere memory of Phil’s mouth on him is enough to make him shiver. 

When he finally hears people moving around the bus later on, he clambers down from his secondary sleep space of the night as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened and no one questions him. 

He's fascinated that he manages to get away with it, convinced it must be written across his face. Especially when Phil emerges a quarter of an hour later and makes strange eye contact with Dan across his bowl of cornflakes. 

It lasts only seconds before Phil shakes it off, resuming his usual demeanour towards everyone. Flopping down and complaining of a headache. 

“Ugh,” he says, laying horizontal on the seat opposite Dan at the table, “remind me why Malibu is ever a good idea?” 

“You guys didn't carry on drinking did you?” Martyn asks.

Phil groans and flings an arm over his face “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” 

“I thought I heard one of you fall over in the early hours” Cornelia says with a giggle. 

Dan grimaces and puts a hand to the back of his head. It feels only slightly bruised where he'd smashed it against the wall. 

“Yeah that was me,” Dan says quickly, “Graceful as ever.” He laughs it off, Phil doesn't even acknowledge it. 

Dan wonders briefly if Phil even remembers, maybe he'd been way more intoxicated than Dan had realised. He watches for signs of anything from Phil as he swings back up to sitting. 

“Not a totally bad idea,” he says finally with a smirk that Dan could swear is for him, but Phil isn't making eye contact. Is pointedly not making eye contact. “Some bits of it were fun.” 

“Yeah” Dan mumbles, hiding his heated face in his breakfast. 

“At least you get a proper bed tonight anyway” Martyn says, directed more at Dan than Phil, “Hotel stop tonight.”

Dan smiles and doesn't say that he was pretty comfortable last night anyway.

Neither of them mention it. At first it's stilted but eventually they fall back into their easy banter and by midday, when they arrive at the venue, Dan has almost forgotten about it. Almost.

Until they are left alone in their dressing room and he's looking at Phil through the mirror. It all rushes back, the sweaty air, the wet sounds of Phil’s tongue, the slap of flesh on flesh as Phil brought himself to climax mere inches from Dan. Dan doesn't breathe.

“You alright?” Phil asks, fiddling with his bag strap on the chair next to him

“Y-Yeah fine.” Dan stutters, trying to regain some composure. 

Phil glances up and meets Dan's eyes in their reflection. It's the first time, Dan realises, that he's looked directly at Dan since breakfast.

“You don't seem fine,” Phil says. 

“Well I am.” 

“Did you sleep okay?”

“I got a few hours.” Dan says, shrugging.

“I slept great myself,” Phil turns to actually face Dan in the room, instead of addressing his reflection. “Guess something tired me out.”

Phil takes half a step towards Dan as if intending to touch him, flexes a hand but then thinks better of it.

They aren't talking about it, but it's as near as they're going to get to Phil admitting what happened. If he is talking about it, he’s saying it like it was a good idea, as if, possibly, it might be something he'd want to repeat. Dan can't make up his mind and his head throbs with the pressure of deciding. 

“Well, half a bottle of Malibu will do that to you.” he says instead, because avoiding it is easier.

Phil keeps looking at him and Dan has to drag his eyes away, hold his phone in front of his face as if doing something important. It isn’t the best tactic, but he knows they shouldn’t be talking about it.

“You didn't have to leave.”

“I woke up,” Dan explains, not clarifying that he didn't want to be seen leaving Phil’s room, because they're not talking about it. 

“Yeah, I know. I just thought…” Phil clears his throat, “Well, sometimes it's nice to be happy in the mornings too.”

It's cryptic. Does Phil mean he was unhappy that Dan left? Or is he referring to ‘a moment of true happiness’ and is disappointed Dan didn't stay for round two? Or else, does he just mean Dan would be uncomfortable in his bunk and therefore not happy about finishing out the night there?

Dan isn't sure how to respond so he doesn't. Instead they help set up for the show, going through their usual warm up and then actually performing but still, they don't talk about it.

And if Dan looks at Phil a bit too much, or for too long and if he can't stop imagining Phil with his hand over his mouth or ordering Dan to lick his palm, then that's all just par for the course.

It’s possible that it’s Dan that enforces the no talking about it rule, but Phil seems pretty quick on the uptake because he doesn’t mention it again.

-

Later, when they're tired and sweaty from the show, Dan doesn't have the energy to think about it any more. So when they get to the hotel they are blissfully allowed to stay in for the night, and there's only one bed, he doesn't even grumble. 

He showers until his skin feels hot and new, dresses in the comfiest pyjamas he owns and crawls in between the soft sheets with a dramatic sigh. 

“I'm never leaving here again. Go on without me.” 

Phil chuckles but seems tentative about climbing into the bed as well. Instead, he's fiddling on his laptop at the table in the corner, damp hair in his eyes. 

“Are you going to stay up all night doing that?” Dan asks, trying to ignore the low nervous feeling he has in his stomach. He doesn't know if it's because Phil might come to bed, or because he might not and the prospect of trying to work that out seems heavy and complicated so he tucks it away. 

“No,” Phil says, mumbling slightly, “I was just…” 

And Dan realises that Phil is nervous too. Because this is unchartered territory for them. Nothing has really changed except that now they have this weird dynamic between them and they're not talking about it. Dan is refusing to talk about it. 

Dan takes a breath and decides that in the absence of alcohol to blame things on, if he wants to satisfy the want that has been trickling over his skin all day, one of them is going to have to be brave. He's pretty sure Phil wants it too because he's been looking at Dan as if he wants to eat him all day but they're both trapped now with how to bring it up again. 

Dan rises from the sheets, puts his feet to the floor and pads over to where Phil is steadfastly staring at the screen in front of him.

“Come to bed,” Dan says in a low voice and he watches as Phil’s eyes dilate and his cheeks flush slightly. Dan feels the threads of an idea forming but he doesn't wait for all the reasons why it's a bad idea to flood in before just sinking to his knees. “Or you could just stay exactly where you are.” 

Phil’s breath hitches in his throat as Dan's hand slides firmly up his thigh.

“Stop.” Phil says, placing a hand on top of Dan’s. 

“S-Sorry” Dan stammers trying to rise to his feet.

“Stay on your knees.” Phil says voice is gravelly and deep. Dan’s mouth drops slack and he has to concentrate hard not to moan slightly. “Touch yourself first. I want to watch.”

They aren't really talking about it, they aren't wasting time on justifications for this. Instead, Phil is glaring at him with a hard sort of want in his eyes and Dan is kneeling quiet and compliant at his feet, finding that his hand has made its way to his crotch, stroking himself lightly through his pyjamas. 

Dan keeps eye contact with Phil while he touches himself, letting his breath come in a wet pant as a bolt of pleasure ripples through him. He grips himself harder, eyes drifting closed as he feels a hand wrap around his wrist, stilling him. 

“Take your shirt off, Dan.” 

Dan isn’t sure why he’s following orders the way he is but he doesn’t stop to think about it too much, simply grips the hem of his t-shirt pulling it over his head in one swift motion and then watching as Phil’s eyes roam over his chest. 

“You’re quite beautiful, you know.” Phil breathes, “I’ve always thought so.” 

Dan swallows thickly, leaning back on his heels so he’s displayed, finding he wants Phil to find him beautiful, wants to watch that look of desire on his best friend’s face. It probably means something that he feels proud that Phil has thought he was desireable all these years, that it wasn’t in his head in those early days, that there had been a mutual appreciation all along. Not that it changes anything now, this is still just an arrangement, but it’s nice to know he wasn’t alone in their tricky tangle of attraction.

“You’re thinking a lot,” Phil observes. 

“Always,” Dan grins cheekily.

“This doesn’t have to be complicated, Dan.” Phil’s finger reaches out to skim Dan’s collarbone, traces it from shoulder to neck, featherlight making Dan shiver. “Do you want to stop?”

“Don’t stop.” Dan breathes, his eyes slipping closed.

Phil hums, loud and rumbling in the back of his throat. His hand flattens and he strokes up Dan’s neck, resting his palm on his nape. 

“Suck me, Dan.” 

Dan lets out a whimper and lets his head be guided down, he snaps his eyes open, seeing that Phil has freed himself from his trousers and his erection is hard, flushed and straining against his stomach. Dan’s mouth is watering at the thought of sucking him. 

Phil tightens the hand on his neck, stilling him before he gets too close. He can hear Phil breathing quickly and he wonders if he is anticipating the moment of Dan’s mouth touching him as much as Dan is. 

“Go slow at first.” Phil says, and Dan realises that he isn’t nervous, he just wants to tell Dan what to do, to control the situation. Dan isn’t against it, in fact he feels himself harden at the sound of Phil’s commanding voice and he reaches a hand down to adjust himself in his pants. 

Phil releases the hand at his neck and Dan grins lasciviously before lowering himself and licking a stripe from the base of Phil’s cock to the tip. He looks up through his eyelashes, knowing how doe-eyed and innocent he must look, playing into the dominant role Phil has adopted. 

Phil looks down at him with a hungry look in his eyes as Dan wraps his lips around the tip of Phil’s length and sucks. He swirls his tongue and bobs his head down, revelling in the musky taste and scent of him. 

“Oh my god, Dan,” Phil says, sliding long fingers into Dan’s hair. 

Dan can’t help it, the pressure on his head and the taste of Phil on his tongue is so good that he hums a moan which must send vibrations across Phil’s cock because suddenly Phil is gripping on Dan’s hair, moaning softly and thrusting upward in a restrained sort of way. 

Dan hums again, letting Phil know it’s fine to thrust, he looks up again, catching Phil’s eyes and swirling his tongue at the same time. 

Phil is breathy now, almost incoherent as he lets out small choked sounds and whispered moans. He looks down at Dan, greedy and wanting and tightens the grip on his hair, thrusting experimentally. 

Dan groans around him, full and loud this time letting Phil know how much he likes it. And he does, despite himself, he feels overwhelmed and taken when Phil uses the hand on his head to hold him steady and thrust up into his mouth, fucking against his tongue and Dan tries to keep up, moving his tongue in a haphazard pattern that seems to be driving Phil crazy.

“You’re taking that so well.” Phil says in bursts, and “so good, so gorgeous, oh my god.” 

Dan relaxes his jaw, slides even further down on Phil’s length, until the tip of Phil’s dick is hitting the back of his throat with each thrust. Phil is slowing now, giving longer more controlled rolls of his hips that send Dan’s brain spiralling into what it would be like if Phil was thrusting like that inside of him. 

His hand sneaks down over his own waist and into his waistband, gripping himself tightly and begins to stroke as Phil comes undone. 

Phil groans and moves as if to pull away but it’s Dan’s turn to place a hand on Phil’s hip, nudging him nearer, moving his tongue and swallowing around Phil. At this, Phil throws his head back, eyes screwed shut, the muscles in his legs going tight and solid beneath Dan’s palm. 

He swallows expertly. He’s done it before, once or twice, a few years ago during uni when he’d realised that things with Phil were never going to be as physically satisfying as he might have originally wanted. Dan can almost laugh at that now. 

Phil goes slack and Dan continues to lick over his length, lapping until each drop of Phil’s orgasm is cleaned, fisting himself roughly as he does. When he pulls back, he’s so close to coming that when Phil wraps a hand around his wrist again he whines in protest. 

“Let me,” Phil says, sliding from his chair dropping to his knees on the hotel room floor. He isn’t sat back on his heels like Dan is so he’s towering over him. 

Phil takes a moment to survey him, eyes roving over Dan’s body before crowding Dan backwards, tipping him down to lie flat on the floor with a solid push to his chest. He still has Dan’s wrist gripped in his fist so he follows him down, settling between Dan’s spread legs. 

They are face to face and Dan sucks in a sharp breath as Phil’s face comes nearer. They don’t kiss, but it’s a near thing. Instead, Phil drops Dan’s wrist, slides a hand down to wrap his fingers around Dan’s cock where Dan’s own hand had been only moments before and buries his face in Dan’s neck. 

He bites at the juncture of Dan’s shoulder and neck, hard enough that Dan feels a burst of pain just as Phil begins stroking him, quick and dirty. Phil sucks at the mark his teeth have made, not slowing any on Dan’s cock and the pressure builds in a flash of white behind Dan’s eyelids. 

He’s coming before he realises, overwhelmed by the heady combination of the taste of Phil on his tongue, the weight of him, the bite of pain at his neck and the unrelenting twist of Phil’s wrist. He’s lost again for a moment, drowning in the sensation of pleasure that washes over him and he has to blink for a few moments afterwards to bring himself back around. 

“I think that’s going to leave a mark,” Dan says and Phil shifts his weight to lay beside Dan on the floor. Dan lifts a finger to the sore spot on his neck and presses down, hissing as it stings. 

“I didn’t break the skin,” Phil assures him, “Sorry, does it hurt?” 

“Yeah,” Dan says, “But I--It’s fine, it was fine.” 

Phil nods and gets to his feet. “Tired now,” he says simply, “I’m going to bed.” 

Dan lays there on the tiled floor of the hotel room for a moment before rising to his feet. Once they’ve both cleaned up they lay in the bed silent and still, not invading each other’s space. Dan drifts in a hazy fog, bone tired and physically drained. They aren’t talking about it, but perhaps they don’t need to.


	3. They Aren't Exclusive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is late but I have a few excuses.  
> 1) This is longer that the other two chapters combined  
> 2) I'm sick so I wasn't up to writing much the last few days  
> 3) This is probably the smuttiest thing I've ever written, so it was a bit intense to write.
> 
> Thank you for the amazing response to this, I love reading your comments. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter too, let me know if you do, and I hope added length makes up for it being late.

It's few weeks later and they've established a sort of routine. Well, if you can call it a routine. Dan never really knows what's happening but Phil is usually counted upon to be his normal self during the day until they're crowded onto his bed, or into a hotel room. Then Phil’s eyes will go dark and he'll put his hands on Dan's skin, always careful to control the situation just enough that he can stay distant from it and Dan keens, moaning and panting so hard he can't bring himself to care. 

He never knows when it will happen. Some nights Phil will go about his normal routine, that measured distance calculated and maintained until the last minute, when it feels like a dam is bursting and Phil slips, just slightly, out of control. 

Other times, Phil will linger with his hand on Dan every time they touch throughout the day, staring a little too long, touching a little too firmly and Dan will lose himself, become distracted and wanting while across a room, watching Phil move through his day with ease, the same things he's done a thousand times but charged with new electricity that Phil has sparked. Until the evening when Phil, with a dangerous look in his eye, will finally, mercifully give Dan the thing he’s been teasing all day.

Dan doesn't initiate it again after that first time, he never needs to, Phil seems to have arranged all of this and set all the rules and Dan is being dragged along in his wake, just trying to keep up. 

But there are more rules. Maybe they're making them up as they go along, or they've always been there but Dan is only just figuring them out. 

He's sat on the edge of a stage, flexing a wrist and wondering if he should worry that it's still aching. 

Phil had pulled and positioned him last night, stripped him reverently, stretched his legs to straddle Phil’s lap and collected his wrists behind him one by one, firmly holding them in one hand in Dan's lumbar spine. 

“You good?” he'd said, pausing for a second and Dan had felt like Phil had his entire body was gathered in one hand, secure and owned.

“I'm good.” Dan had said and then nodded while Phil licked his lip and tightened his grip.

His arms had strained awkwardly, beautifully backwards, and Dan had wondered why this game, why he wasn't allowed to touch Phil. He can never kiss him, because they don't, but usually he's granted access to put his hands on Phil. Last night Phil had decided he wasn't allowed, not to touch Phil or himself. He'd grinned wickedly as he whispered this in Dan's ear and proceeded to bring him to the brink of orgasm agonisingly slowly before allowing him his hands back, shivering and bucking in Phil’s lap. 

He'd been pressed so close he could feel that Phil too was wound up tight, by the friction and the positioning and possibly the noises Dan made as he writhed and thrust rhythmically against Phil’s cock trapped below him. By the time he was allowed the freedom to touch Phil they both lasted only a few seconds more. 

His wrist is still aching and Dan doesn't know if he should be worried, or just grateful there isn't a mark on his skin and that he has that twinging pain to remember the night by. It's phantom pain though, a mere memory, the ghost of Phil all over him that he carries like a shroud. 

He’s remembering it, grinning slightly to himself, when he learns of their new rule. 

Phil is across the stage, and the girl is petite and timid in front of him. She's leaning on the set piece and laughing fondly at something Phil has said. She works here, at the venue. She supposed to be helping move items or else bringing them things that they need but instead she's pressed up against their equipment, tucking a long strand of hair behind her ear distractedly and _flirting_ with Phil Lester. 

Dan would usually laugh, finding the idea of someone flirting with Phil comical, he would perhaps even feel encouraging of Phil, happy that his best friend had a chance of some fun, or of meeting someone. 

Today, the ache in his wrist flares and he finds he's closed his fist tight. The usual camaraderie he feels is replaced by a snarling spitting monster at the back of his mind. 

It's not that Phil is his, exactly, but they've got an arrangement, haven't they? At least for the duration of the tour. 

“You're really funny” he hears the girl say and he wants to throw something. 

Before he knows it he's on his feet, and dusting off his jeans. He doesn't care, he's trying to tell himself, Phil can do whatever and whoever the fuck he wants but it doesn't mean Dan has to watch. 

But Phil has other ideas. 

“Dan!” Phil calls across the stage and he's smiling and beckoning him with a hand, the girl looking over at Dan as though he's an inconvenience. 

Dan grits his teeth and makes his way across the stage, flexing his hand to ease the dull ache, or to cause it, he isn't sure. 

When he reaches them Phil claps a friendly hand on his back. Does he linger a second too long or is Dan imagining it? 

“You know Dan,” he says, head turned towards her instead of looking at Dan. 

Dan's being irrational, but the sight of this girl’s flicky hair and small figure is putting a bad taste in his mouth. 

Whatever arrangement they currently have, both he and Phil are attracted to women. For him it’s not just girls, it's not really any one thing about a person, regardless of his own personal struggle to come to terms with it in the early days. For Phil he isn't sure, they've never really talked about that either except that Phil brings up Sarah Michelle Gellar constantly and he had called Dan beautiful not a few nights ago. He also has a fair amount of talent at certain things so Dan's pretty sure he's had practise in that department. 

But still, this girl; petite, slim, blonde, represents everything Dan is not. Perhaps everything Phil had been wanting before settling into the arrangement with Dan as an emergency; like during a drought, these are fallback conditions.

And the girl, being nothing but polite, says yes hello of course she knows Dan. Dan is livid. 

“We were thinking about going out after the show,” Dan hears Phil saying, “You should come.” 

They had been planning to go for a nice meal, maybe a few drinks. They're in a hotel room tonight again and they've got a day off tomorrow so why not have some fun? Not to mention Dan had thought that tonight… he's not sure what he thought. That Phil would gather him up close again, press on the bruise at his neck, caress the ache at his wrist, mark him up again? Make his voice deep and low and commanding tell Dan exactly--

But here Phil is, inviting this girl along and Dan has to fake a smile and nod like it's fine. They weren't going alone or anything, he's not going to be a third wheel, there's Martyn and Cornelia and a few members of the crew but it doesn't mean he wants this girl intruding. This girl who is looking at him like she wants him out of the way.

“Are you sure?” She says in a high pitch, sugary voice that grates on Dan’s nerves, “I wouldn’t want to intrude.” 

“No, no of course you’re welcome to come along,” Phil says, because Phil actually is nice and wouldn’t see any reason at all this strange girl couldn’t come along with them. It's that, or he’s really trying to wind Dan up, make a point. “Right, Dan?”

They're both looking at Dan, expecting him to say something perhaps, but he can't bring himself to, so he flexes his wrist again and doesn't. 

“Well,” the girl says, obviously unnerved by Dan’s strange silence. “It sounds like fun so, yeah, maybe I’ll see you later.” 

Dan is still silent so she, uncharacteristically in Dan’s mind, takes that as her cue to leave. 

“That was a bit rude,” Phil says when she’s gone, shoving his hands into his pockets. 

“Was it?” Dan spits through gritted teeth, “So sorry I ruined your fun.” 

“Right, what the heck?” Phil asks, wrenching his hands from his jeans and turning to look at Dan. 

“You know what.” 

“I really don’t.” 

Dan has the urge to reach out. Phil’s hair is hanging in his eyes and Dan wants to push it back with the tip of one finger. Just to softly push his skin into Phil’s hair, put him back together.

“I--”

“She was perfectly nice,” Phil says, “What is your problem?”

“I don't want... “ Dan trails off because that's getting dangerously close to talking about it and if he's going to break any of the rules right now it's not going to be that one. 

Possibly it's the kissing one. It's dark, his intensity, the scratching itch he has to press his lips against Phil’s. In apology? Submission? He wants Phil to not be mad at him, but he also wants Phil to feel how he does. Grasping, possessive… pathetic. 

But Phil doesn't want him like that.

He feels like he's slipping, unstable. When Phil takes a step forward Dan backs up until he's pressed against the set, exactly where she had been a moment ago. A temporary replacement.

“You don't want what?” Phil asks, mouth quirking as if he already knows what Dan does and doesn't want. In exacting detail. 

“Just… I thought we were going out with our friends tonight.” Dan says, dipping his head to avoid Phil’s gaze, “Not inviting strangers. That's all.” 

“I don't see why not,” Phil says, lowering his voice and slipping closer to Dan.

It's risky out here on the stage, but Phil’s hand reaches out and closes around Dan's wrist, squeezing briefly. 

“We’re both allowed to be with other people you know.” Phil sighs, his breath ghosting over Dan's face in a way that makes Dan realise just how close he is now. Stepped up into Dan's space, a hair's breadth between them. Anyone walking by now would have a hard time misinterpreting what was going on. “This isn’t an exclusive arrangement.”

“No,” Dan protests, “That's not what I…” 

“You should come along tonight.” Phil continues, as if Dan hadn't even responded. “Come to dinner, show me you can be good. Can you be good for me Dan?” 

Dan shivers. “Yes.” 

He so desperately wants to show Phil that yes, he can be good, he can abide by the rules and do exactly as Phil tells him if only for God's sake Phil would touch him. Suddenly it doesn't matter if he's the only one Phil is touching, just so long as he is.

But Phil doesn't touch him. Instead he steps backwards and away, dropping his hand from Dan's wrist just as Martyn appears from the wings stage left. Phil’s face drops into an easy smile and they're talking about the merch stand and suppliers and it takes Dan a little longer to draw in a breath, compose himself, and join the conversation.

-

It starts in the cab to dinner, not beforehand. Phil is maintaining an air of nonchalance before that, keeping his measured distance and his hands to himself. But when Dan is finally settled into the back seat of a car, Phil suddenly starts an all out war designed to break Dan down. 

It starts small. Phil’s hand on the curve of Dan's back, guiding him into the car. It could be an accident, a thoughtless gesture, but Dan can see Phil straining to keep his eyes off Dan, to act like he's not looking for his reaction. 

In the car Phil knocks his knee against Dan’s, even though there is more than enough space on the seat for both of them. Dan fights the blush on his cheeks and doesn't give in.

When they get to the restaurant, in the presence of their friends, Phil still doesn't relent. His hand falls on Dan's knee under the table, pressing increasingly frustrating circles into the fabric of his jeans, pressing just lightly enough for Dan to feel the heat transfer on his skin. Phil is still upright, nothing about him gives away that he's touching Dan, just out of everyone's eye line.

When the girl comes to sit on the other side of Phil, Dan shoots a glare at her and Phil’s hand slips from his knee briefly. 

There's chatter at the table while everyone is taking their seats, so the party can be forgiven for missing the moment when Phil leans in close to Dan's ear, lips dangerously close to brushing the soft skin of his neck and whispers to him. 

“Be good, remember.”

And Dan thinks he understands. 

“Hi,” he says to the girl, “I'm sorry about earlier. I was tired I guess, what did you say your name was?” 

The girl looks surprised, smiling widely and glancing at Phil nervously. 

“Sian” She says, tucking that hair behind her ear.

Phil’s hand slides back onto his knee. Dan is beginning to learn the rules.

“Well it’s nice to meet you Sian,” Dan says, smiling widely, it’s fake but it looks real. It earns him a squeeze on his knee and Phil’s hand travelling imperceptibly higher on his leg. “Glad you could make it.” 

“Thank you for inviting me,” Sian says. 

“Oh,” Dan fakes, clapping a hand on Phil’s shoulder and letting it linger. It’s not noticeable to anyone other than them, but Dan’s index finger grazes the strip of skin when Phil’s neck meets his shirt and he feels a shudder run through his friend and the fingers on his leg stutter. “That was all Phil, it’s him you should thank.” 

“Well thank you, Phil.” Sian says, picking up her napkin and placing it on her lap. 

She looks away then, turning to talk to the guy on her right, a member of the crew Dan has temporarily forgotten the name of. Phil would probably think that was a bad thing, so he doesn’t mention it. 

“You’re not being very good, Dan.” Phil says under his breath, “Keep your hands to yourself until you’re told otherwise. Okay?”

Dan nods and Phil can see him register the gesture from the corner of his eye. 

Phil’s hand stays where it is as they fall into discussion with other people on the table. He’s mostly still but infrequently he’ll squeeze or stroke at Dan and it’s distracting in a way that makes him stop mid-sentence or stutter alarmingly.

Phil is talking across the table, Martyn is saying something about the next venue, and Phil is responding as usual, looking as though nothing is off. 

When the drinks come, Phil’s hand has to move, he lifts it slowly, dragging his fingers up the inside seam of Dan’s jeans and Dan’s legs part slightly, he doesn’t moan when Phil’s fingers finally leave him, but it’s a near thing. 

“What about you, Dan?” Martyn is saying.

“Sorry, what?” Dan says, distracted. 

“You okay man?” 

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine.” Dan nods, smiling again because Phil is smirking next to him.

They make it through appetizers before Dan is tested again. Dan has drifted into his own silence, which isn’t like him. Usually he’s playing up, the centre of attention just to make sure everyone is having a good time. Instead, he’s thinking about the absence of Phil’s hand on his leg, and what it means that he wants it so much. 

It's just that he hasn't been with anyone in a while, he reasons, he's bound to enjoy the physical contact. That and the fact that Phil is, objectively, really good at this stuff.

Their friendship works because Dan is dark and loud and brash and Phil is light and fun and they are perfectly counterbalanced. In this arrangement it's the same, but it seems the roles are reversed.

Phil becomes a commanding, wild presence and Dan feels his head clear and he just stops thinking beyond the sensation of Phil all over him. Dan assumes this is something Phil has always done, that this is who he is in a sexual context, but Dan has never been exposed to that before, preferring to be the one in control so that he can distance himself and feel only what he wants to.

Dan thinks it probably has something to do with the fact that their friendship works so well otherwise, that they can slip into any dynamic without much fuss.

He tries to imagine someone else making him feel small and submissive, and him being okay with that, comfortable enough that he doesn't feel lacking, but it doesn't fit.

Dan shakes his head and tries not to think about the word Trust and how it feels like an alien and unused part of his lexicon.

“You're thinking too much,” Phil says leaning over. 

“Sorry,” Dan smiles, “It's nothing.”

Phil scans his face as if checking whether that is really the case before sliding a hand on to his leg again and squeezing. 

It still sends a bolt of pleasure through Dan, but he's comforted by it too, which is more worrying to be honest. 

“I want you to do something” Phil is murmuring in his ear. 

Dan looks hurriedly around the table, noting how everyone is engaged in conversation and they're missing the fact that Phil’s mouth is ridiculously close to his neck and that his hand has travelled several inches further up.

Dan parts his legs again and chokes back a moan as Phil tips his fingers inward to rest on his inner thigh. 

“Anything” he whispers back, despite himself.

“I want you to excuse yourself and go to the bathroom.” 

Dan looks at him, because Phil can’t be serious. His mouth must be hanging open because Phil is smirking again. 

He leans back upright in his chair so he isn’t in Dan’s space anymore. Dan knows that this is Phil saying that it’s okay if he doesn’t want to play, but the hand on his leg moves slightly upward so he’s grazing Dan’s hardening length, and that hand promises that if Dan does play, it will be so worth it. 

Dan thinks about it for a moment, knowing it’s all futile and that he’ll cave anyway. But he likes to think that he’ll put up nominal resistance. It’s crazy, that he’s so far into all of this that a quick blow job out of boredom has turned into him rising to his feet at their dinner table and excusing himself just because Phil told him to.

Phil doesn’t watch him go, he’s in conversation with Sian now who is laughing and twirling her hair around her finger. Dan lets himself grin in spite even though he knows that it's wrong, but he can't help but feel a slight thrill that he’s the one playing this game with Phil right now, not her. 

When he reaches the bathroom he's happy to see that it's empty and there are floor to ceiling mirrors on one wall. There's also a lock on the main door so they won't be interrupted. It's nice, he thinks, probably because the restaurant is nice. But then, he's done things in worse places before. 

He waits for an undetermined amount of time. As he sits in anticipation, hopped up on the bank of sinks, it could be 2 minutes or 2 hours. But finally, Phil is coming through the door, closing it behind him and sliding the lock into place with a click that echoes off the dark tiles. 

“You weren't being very well behaved out there Dan.” He says, walking towards him and loosening his tie. “Barely speaking, moody. Whatever will I do with you?” 

“Didn't think you'd notice,” Dan shrugs, and Phil looks slightly perplexed. 

“Well I did. You should really be nicer to people that like you.”

“I'm nice to you.” Dan points out. 

“I don't count.”

Dan crooks an eyebrow but doesn't bother coming up with a retort, because Phil looks mad.

“Hands” Phil says, having walked all the way over to Dan. He’s removed his tie and it is now dangling over one palm and swinging enticingly.

Dan's mouth goes dry at the prospect of what Phil is suggesting and he's holding out his hands in front of him before he can think too much and his jeans are already growing uncomfortably tight. 

“Behind,” Phil smirks, almost laughing. 

When Dan complies Phil leans into his space, arms encircling Dan to grasp his wrists. The delicious burn is there left over from the night before and Dan could moan on the spot, but he doesn't. 

“If you tell me you want to stop I can have you out of this in a second.” Phil is saying in his ear, looping the tie around Dan's wrists and pulling it tight. Dan can't move, and he couldn't be happier about it. “You just need to say stop or no. Feigning resistance isn't part of this okay, I only want to do what you want me to.”

Dan meets his eyes and for a minute he's just looking at his friend Phil, not Phil-who-he-has-a-strange-arrangement-with just, Phil. His best friend. 

“Tell me you understand,” he says, his voice level. 

“I understand.” Dan nods, licking his lips where his mouth is still dry from anticipation.

“Good.”

And then Dan thinks Phil will move quickly, but he doesn't. He brings a hand up to smooth over the placket of Dan's shirt and flicks his top button open with one hand. 

“I think you owe me for being so sullen tonight.” 

“I do?” 

“Hmmm” Phil hums, working the buttons of Dan's shirt open on by one. “Yes.”

“What do you want?” Dan asks.

Phil’s pupils dilate as he meets Dan's gaze. “So many things,” he says wistfully. “But for now I want you to suck me with that pretty mouth of yours.” 

Dan does moan at that. As Phil is pulling him from his perch on the sinks and pushing him, arms straining, to his knees, he has a strangely intrusive thought. He thinks that one day, when all of this is over, he'll be washing the dishes in their flat and Phil will be in his pyjamas, spilling milk and coffee on their counter, or tripping over his own feet, and Dan will remember this moment, and all the others. He'll remember the dirty things Phil says to him, and the look on his face and the smell of his cologne, and he wonders how he'll carry on washing those dishes, or watching that anime, or living in that house when he has seen Phil like this, had him like this, and doesn't get to have him any more. 

“You're thinking again,” Phil observes, working at his own zip with one hand, pulling his length from his pants so that it is hard and flushed just inches from Dan's face. He slides the other hand into Dan's hair and firms his grip. “Let's see if we can distract you a bit.”

Phil tugs on Dan's hair just hard enough that Dan is pulled off balance. With his arms behind him he can't put them out to steady himself so he's tipped forward to envelope Phil’s cock in one smooth motion. 

Phil moans above him as Dan regains his composure and licks at the head greedily. Phil let's out a deep sigh as if in relief and Dan hums around him as he relaxes his jaw and drops lower. 

He's able to take quite a bit of Phil, bobbing his head and building up an easy rhythm. It's strange but as Phil’s hand firms in his hair and guides him into the pace he wants Dan’s mind goes blessedly blank of everything he'd been struggling with and all he can think about is Phil and the grunts and groans he's making. 

Dan glances up through his eyelashes and meets Phil’s intense gaze. 

“Fuck,” Phil says tugging on Dan's hair and moving him off his cock. “If you carry on like that this is going to be over far too quickly.” 

Dan can't help but be pleased. He loves that Phil, so usually in control and put together, could be brought to the point of nearly giving in just because of Dan. 

“Get up for me.” Phil says and Dan, with the help of Phil’s guiding hands, rises to his feet. “Do you want to see what you look like?” 

Phil guides him to the full length mirrors and holds him steady. Dan looks at his reflection and notes how his hair is messed up, his cheeks flushed, rosy glow spreading down his chest where his shirt buttons are open. His lips are red and swollen and his pupils are blown wide. He looks, Dan thinks, used. 

But Phil is stroking a hand over his back, down over his bound wrists and squeezing at his arse. “You look like you want something.” 

And Dan does want something, although it's not something they've done yet. It's something he's thought about a lot though, but he doesn't know if it's going too far for their arrangement. But then, being tied up and sucking your best friend's cock in a public bathroom sounds like it's going pretty far, so maybe not. 

Instead of answering he grinds his hips backwards, past Phil’s groping hand and settling against his crotch. He grinds backwards against Phil’s length and let's his head roll forward.

Dan watches as Phil’s eyes go wide in the mirror and then squeeze tight as if trying to compose himself. “You want…” 

“Please.” Dan says, nodding. 

Phil draws a slow breath in through his nose and shakes his head. “We can't.” 

“Oh…” Dan pulls away from Phil slightly, creating space between them. He'd known it was a risk, it was probably pushing the boundaries of this thing too far.

“No” Phil growls pulling Dan back flush against him, “Ugh, I want-- I mean, we can't because I don't have…protection. It's important…”

Dan understands, but Phil being all flustered about it is the first time he's broken the dominant character he usually adopts while they do this. It's cute, as if they're just discussing what they want for dinner and Phil is trying to convince Dan that they can't order pizza again, because they have to be healthy well rounded adults. 

“I think I have an alternative.” Phil smiles, regaining himself. 

Dan lifts his head up to meet Phil’s eyes in the mirror and is surprised to see how dark they are. Their pupils are blown wide and both of their chests are rising and falling with the anticipation of it all. 

“What did you have in mind?” Dan asks, his voice quiet.

Phil reaches round to undo Dan’s jeans. “Watch,” he says as his fingers make quick work of the button and zip. 

Dan looks in the mirror, watching as Phil slides his jeans down his legs. He steps out of them when Phil motions for him to and then he's stood, shirt open in nothing but boxers staring at himself in the mirror. His hands are bound behind his back and as Phil straightens he seems to be enjoying the view. 

He circles Dan slowly, dragging a palm across his shoulders and down his chest, and Dan barely spares a thought for the fact that all of their friends are still at dinner, will be wondering where they are. But then Phil’s hand ghosts over his rock hard cock trapped in his boxers and Dan's vision whites out. 

“You look good like this.” Phil murmurs. “I told everyone you weren't feeling well and I've gone to check on you. Said I might be a while. So I could. I could take you right to edge and send you back to the hotel to wait while I finish our dinner. Ask you not to touch yourself until I got home.” He's behind Dan again now and looking at him in the mirror and sliding his hand round to palm Dan through his underwear. “Would you do it? Would you be good and wait for me?” 

Dan whines and tries to thrust forward but Phil’s other hand takes hold of the tie binding his wrists and pulls him backwards so he's pressed against Phil and can feel the hard length of him against his hip.

“I'd be good…” Dan moans, “I'd be so good for you. Just-- please.” 

Phil smiles and Dan drops his head back to rest on his shoulder as Phil’s hand makes its way into his boxers and closes long fingers around his cock. He drops his head to Dan's neck and mouths at the skin there while Dan moans and squirms against him. 

Dan can feel the tension that's been building inside of him all evening pooling in his groin. He's panting and sweating in seconds and Phil’s expert fingers drive him to the edge. Phil knows how to do this to him now, if he wanted he could take Dan from flaccid to coming in mere minutes and Dan is ashamed of how wanton and greedy he is for it, bucking and writhing while Phil takes him apart. 

Until suddenly his hand stops and Dan chokes out a whine of protest. “God don't stop… fuck.” 

“You're being quite loud.” Phil says, simply.

“I won't be… I won't. God. Don't stop.” He's trying to drop his voice low but he isn't succeeding.

Phil doesn't respond, simply manhandles Dan until he's bent over the sinks. “Look up” Phil says pulling at his hair until Dan is staring at Phil in the mirror above the sink, his face mere inches from it. He looks wrecked. If he turns his head to the right he can see them in the wall mirrors and Phil is stood behind him, fisting his cock slowly and looking down at Dan sprawled out below him. 

It's kind of thrilling, and hot as hell, to watch himself and Phil as they do this. Dan didn't know this was a thing of his but fuck if it isn't making him harder just watching himself tied up and at Phil’s mercy.

“Fuck,” Phil says skimming a hand down Dan's back “I could just…” 

Dan nods. “You could.”

“Don't be cheeky” Phil swats at Dan's behind lightly but sharply causing a quick sting and Dan bites his lip. “You like that” Phil observes. 

Dan doesn't know if he does like it generally but in this moment when all movement has been denied him and he's blissed out on the clarity in his mind, he had enjoyed it. He's learning all sorts of things about what he could and couldn't like and he wants to explore all of them or maybe none of them, mainly he just wants Phil’s hand back on him right this second.

“For another time perhaps,” Phil says and slides a hand into his pocket. 

When he draws it back out there is a travel sized bottle of lube in his palm. 

“You came prepared.” Dan said, “So sure I'd act out?” 

He's trying not to think about the fact that Phil brought lube and not a condom. So it isn't lack of preparation but an active decision not to fuck him like that. It's interesting but he files it away to obsess over later. And obsess he will.

“I knew I'd have to reward you or punish you” Phil agrees, dribbling lube onto his fingers. 

“And which is this?” 

“Not sure yet,” Phil says, “Tell me, how quiet can you be?” 

Dan whines, if what he thinks is going to happen is going to happen, he has no idea. 

“Keep quiet, and I'll let you come.” Phil says, “Make noise and you can go back to the hotel and wait.” 

Dan sucks in a breath as Phil’s hand glides down over his behind and a finger slips between his cheeks to stroke teasingly at his hole. 

“Do you think you can do it, Dan?” 

Dan very much thinks that he can't do it, but he nods anyway because Phil’s fingers are slick and deft and he very much wants them to continue what they're doing. 

Phil smiles and pushes his finger inside him. Dan sucks air past his teeth in a hiss and tries not to moan at the delicious burn.

“Very good Dan,” Phil praises, “Can I move?” 

Dan opens his mouth to respond but sees Phil’s eyes shoot him a warning in this reflection. He nods instead. 

“Good.” 

Phil does move then, frustratingly slowly, but Dan still finds it difficult to clamp his mouth shut and stay quiet. He bites his lip and just about manages. 

It’s a tense couple of seconds, maybe a minute, before Phil is asking him if he wants more and once again Dan is nodding because he doesn’t _want_ it, he _needs_ it. 

When Phil slips another finger in alongside, and Dan feels the added sensation that is a stretch but not yet anywhere near enough, he begins to move, grinding backwards, trying to get more of Phil’s fingers. 

“Whoa there,” Phil says, removing his fingers instead. 

Dan wants to whine and groan and tell him to get the fuck back inside him but he can’t, because Phil is looking at him like it’s a challenge and Dan has never been one to give up easily. 

“Turn around, up on the sinks.” 

Dan complies, needing Phil’s help to actually hop up. And Phil is tipping him backwards until his head is rested on the mirror and Dan squeezes his eyes shut and Phil slides him forward and shoves his fingers back inside him in one wet slick thrust. 

It takes everything Dan has not to moan when Phil begins to move in earnest. Phil is moving closer, the texture of his jeans meeting the soft sensitive skin of Dan’s inner thighs as he slides between them. Dan spreads his legs and doesn’t care how needy and vulnerable it makes him. Because Phil has started scissoring his fingers, as though preparing Dan for something, and Dan can tell this is a practised motion, which means Phil has done this before. And Dan can tell because holy hell, Phil is crooking his fingers and Dan collapses in on himself , drawing himself upward with a soft gasp that he hopes Phil can’t hear. 

But Phil must know what happened that he’s grazed the blinding bundle of nerves inside Dan because he’s the one that moans and drops his head. For a moment, Dan thinks that Phil means to kiss him, and it is this, more than anything else, that threatens to make him break. But Phil doesn’t kiss him. Instead he rests their foreheads together so that they could be kissing, if only they didn’t have this stupid rule. 

“You’re so fucking beautiful” Phil breathes against his cheek, crooking his fingers again. 

And Dan digs his fingernails into his palm, straining against the tie that is tight around his wrists and shivers, tensing everywhere. 

“Are you close?” Phil asks, moving his other hand to his dick and pumping slowly. He’s thrusting into his own palm in time with the way his fingers move in and out of Dan so that if his closes his eyes, Dan can imagine perfectly what it would be like if--

It’s over. Dan is imagining Phil’s hard dick inside him, filling him in a way that he hasn’t experienced in so long and he lets out a groan that echoes off the tiles. Phil, true to his word, withdraws his hands and steps back. 

“Fuck Dan,” he says, the curse rolling softly from his tongue in a way that sounds sinful and beautiful at the same time. “You know what happens now.” 

“No,” Dan whines.

But Phil is already doing up his jeans and reaching around behind Dan to undo the tie. He helps Dan sit up and rubs at his shoulders as his arms come back around. 

“You’re going to have to go back now.” Phil says. 

Dan narrows his eyes and fixes Phil with a stare. “You wouldn’t.” 

Phil lets the corner of his mouth raise and then turns on the tap to wash the lube off his fingers. “Wouldn’t I?” 

“You’d be torturing yourself too.” Dan points out.

“Would I?” 

“Yes.” 

“How so?” Phil has dried his hand on paper towels now and is looping his tie back around his neck; pure, pristine, and put together once again. He runs a hand through his hair and with the exception of the bulge still present in his trousers, he looks as though nothing has ever happened. 

Dan looks down at himself, still in shock that Phil isn’t going to continue, is actually going to leave him like this, and reluctantly fetches his jeans from the floor. 

“You haven’t got off either.” Dan says, dragging his jeans on and buttoning his shirt. 

“I could,” Phil says simply, shrugging. 

“What if I don’t want to help you out?” Dan dares to ask, “After all, you’re leaving me high and dry.” 

Phil turns to him and moves forward, taking over from Dan and doing the few remaining button up on his shirt. 

“Let’s make something clear.” Phil says, pausing on the last button and just resting his warm palms again Dan’s shoulders. “If you want me to, I will get you off right here right now, quick and dirty and sufficient. But you’ll know, you lost the game and couldn’t do as I asked.” 

Dan opens his mouth to say something, a retort or a rebuttal, but Phil continues. 

“Or, you could behave. Go back to the hotel, try desperately not to touch yourself. And if you’re good, and you manage it, and you’re there, waiting for me when I get back, I’ll give you anything you want.” 

Dan raises an eyebrow at that and slides his hands around Phil’s waist. 

“Anything?” 

Phil nods and rests their foreheads together again. Dan’s stomach flips over and his vision swims. 

“You don’t have to make your mind up now. If you’re asleep when I get in then I’ll know you don’t want to play, or that you gave up.” 

“And you?” Dan asks, “What about you?” he places a hand over the hard length of Phil still resting in his jeans. 

Phil’s eyes flutter shut and he lets out the faintest sigh.

“Surely you don’t want to sit here all night just waiting for me. Knowing I’m back at the hotel hard and aching for you.” 

“I’ll manage.” Phil says, eyes flicking open to meet Dan’s. They’re so blue, Dan thinks, so impossibly blue that he will never find anything else in nature to match the colour of Phil’s eyes. Blue and gold and green swirled together like a muted Van Gogh sky. “That, or I’m sure I can find someone willing to help me out. You might be pretty Howell, but you’re not the only person in this city I could convince to sleep with me.” 

Dan chokes on a laugh. “Right. I’m sure,” and he means it. This arrangement is built around the fact that Phil is helping him out, right? He’s the one that hadn’t gotten off in ages, that doesn’t have a private room to wank in whenever he wants. He doesn’t know how it got as far as it has but it’s still essentially just Phil doing Dan a favour. 

“Go on then,” Phil says, stroking a finger over Dan’s neck and lifting his head. “Back to the hotel with you. I’ll be back later.” 

Dan takes one short breath, composes himself, runs a hand through his dishevelled hair to flatten it out and steps away. He doesn’t look back as he exits the bathroom, mostly because he’s sure that if he did, he’d be on his knees and begging Phil to pick up where he left off, swearing he can be quiet, or still, or anything else Phil demands of him. 

Instead, he keeps his head down, makes it onto the street and into a cab before he’s marvelling at the night’s events. Phil is probably back in his seat at the table by now, explaining to their friends that Dan is ill and has had to go home but that he sends his apologies. Sian has probably taken the opportunity to engage him in conversation, flicking her stupid hair all over the place and licking her pink shiny lips in a direct invitation. 

Phil might consider it. It’s not beneath him to take her to the bathroom maybe, or even to go back to her place before returning to Dan. He imagines it, Phil slipping into bed beside him later, smelling of her perfume and sliding a hand in to Dan’s clothes. Dan might protest for a moment, or he’s kidding himself that he would. The truth is, he knows that he’d breathe in the scent of her on Phil with a strange sort of reluctance, but then growl and part his legs anyways, willing to let Phil do whatever he wants because he doesn’t need to be the only one Phil is touching, he just needs to be one of them. 

He’s still worrying what happens afterwards. What happens when this is over and they’re back home and Phil returns to fucking whoever he wants to and not even offering Dan the mere scraps of himself. But he doesn’t want to dwell on it too much, because he’s not sure when this arrangement slipped from something casual that Dan couldn’t definitely handle, into a territory where Dan is learning all of this weird stuff about himself and beginning to wonder whether anyone will be able to do this to him again. 

The taxi is hot and Dan feels the sweat collecting on his collar and he’s still aroused and uncomfortable in his jeans. He wants to reach down and adjust himself, apply a slight pressure to relieve some of the tension but he stops himself. He’d lose the game they’re playing if he did, he understands the rules. No touching himself. Logically, he knows that Phil will never know, but what’s the point in a game if you don’t play by the rules, is it really winning if you cheat? 

The prospect of the reward is worth it. Anything he wants. 

Dan knows exactly what he’s going to ask for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry if you're just as frustrated as Dan is right now. I was going to resolve it but I realised it would make this chapter like 10k or something and even later than it already was. I'll definitely resolve it next time. Promise. 
> 
> Also, if you like this you should check out [Birthday Sex by Thejigsawtimess](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5616823) its my favourite fic of all time and, I must admit, heavily influenced me in to writing a smutty fwb fic based on rules. It's better than this one. Go read it.
> 
> As always come talk to me on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/agingfangirl) and [Tumblr](http://agingphangirl.tumblr.com) if you want updates on when I'm writing, or behind the scenes of this and my other fics.


	4. They don’t get attached

Dan is staring at the wall when the door opens. He’s practically seething. It’s late, nearly the early hours of the morning, and the novelty of the game has definitely worn off. 

He doesn’t turn his head to greet Phil, he stays staring at the wall, even when Phil passes in front of his vision to settle on the other bed. 

“Not talking?” Phil says, with a levity that just serves to irritate Dan further. 

He’d left Dan all night. He’d thought Phil would make his excuses after a short time, come back to the hotel room and… well, he didn’t think Phil would leave him there all night. It’d been thrilling at first, trying not to touch himself. He’d stayed hard for a while, closing his eyes, sinking his head back onto the pillow and imagining Phil bursting through the door and picking back up right where they’d left off, holding him down, starting with his fingers and then-- But soon the delicious throbbing had turned into a dull ache, discomfort and frustration. 

He’d contemplated just getting himself off and turning over to go to sleep. Then Phil would know, when he came back eventually to find that Dan no longer wanted to play his game, that it was unacceptable to leave him like this. It pretty much went against their whole arrangement didn’t it? Wasn’t the entire point of all of this that Dan didn’t wind up sexually frustrated and alone? 

More than the direct flouting of everything their arrangement stood for, Dan is mostly just pissed off that it bothers him so much. It shouldn’t make him feel this dejected that Phil hadn’t come back to continue their casual thing. _Casual_ he reminds himself. Phil doesn’t owe him anything, he can certainly be out with his friends without Dan. They aren’t joined at the hip. They’re branded that way but really… They’re friends. Best friends, sure, but that’s as far as it goes. 

In the end he didn’t touch himself, and he didn’t go to sleep. He tried not to think about why, and how desperate that made him. He tried not to think about how he wanted Phil to come back, maybe not even to finish what they started, just to gather Dan up in his arms and tell him that he’d rather be here in this hotel room, he’d rather be wherever Dan was, much rather that than wherever it is he’s been until this time.

“Answer me, Dan.” Phil warns, rising to his feet again and coming to stand next to Dan’s bed. “This was your punishment after all, for not playing the game. You knew the rules.” 

Dan doesn’t say anything. 

Phil’s voice is evenly pitched. He’s level and calm when he says “I’m going to say this once. I’m assuming right now that you’re being petulant because you want to evoke some kind of reaction out of me. And that’s fine.”

Phil is removing his tie, undoing the knot and sliding it from his neck in one smooth motion, tugging on one end of it until it is free. Dan swallows hard when he remembers what they’d done with it earlier. He tries to hide the disappointment when Phil drops it backwards onto his bed. 

“I pretty much expected it to be honest,” Phil continues, “since you can’t ever stand to not get what you want.” 

Dan bristles at the accusation, but he doesn’t break.

“If that isn’t what this is about, and you really do just want to stop and talk or stop and not talk, if you’re really mad at me, just tell me. Just say the word. Otherwise…” and at this Phil’s hand comes to rest on Dan’s shoulder. “Otherwise Dan, I’m about this close to teaching you how to accept punishment when it’s doled out to you.” 

Dan sucks in a sharp breath. It’s audible and he can see Phil’s mouth crook up at one corner at the sound.

“Use your words, Dan.” 

“Teach me,” Dan whispers, and he hates how pathetic his voice sounds. But he wants it, he wants Phil to take him over, make the nagging voice in his brain that keeps questioning all of this shut up, make him pliant and quiet. He isn’t able to do that any other way. 

Phil climbs on the bed, places a knee either side of Dan’s thighs. He doesn’t sit back on his heels, instead he walks his knees forward, hand ghosting over a growing erection in his trousers so that it is inches from Dan’s face. 

“I know I promised you a treat for being so patient,” Phil says, gripping himself a little more firmly. “But you’re being moody, and I don’t appreciate it. So you can suck a little for me okay? Just until I think you’re in a bit of a better mood.”

Dan nods and reaches a hand out to go for Phil’s belt. 

“Ah ah.” Phil says, curling fingers around his wrist. “Slowly, bear.” 

The nickname is a shock. He hasn’t used it in years, and this new context is like a blow to Dan’s stomach that knocks the wind out of him. Phil seems just as shocked for the moment, freezing in his movements and his eyes going wide, but he manages to shake it off much quicker than Dan does. 

“Shirt first.” Phil recovers, and Dan reaches for the button at Phil’s throat. 

He opens it with ease, moving downward to the next one, letting his fingers linger on each inch of Phil’s pale skin as it’s exposed. When all the buttons are conquered he rests flat palms on Phil’s abdomen, smoothing upwards in a fluid motion, feeling the dips and hard planes of Phil’s chest before gliding up and over his shoulders, dragging the shirt with his fingers until Phil is shirtless and exposed above him. 

“You now.” 

Dan grips the bottom of the t-shirt he’d changed into upon arriving back at the hotel. He pulls it over his head, Phil’s hands coming to rest on his heated skin before it’s even fully removed. Phil’s palms are warm and Dan’s skin feels fevered, he wants more of this, more warmth, more of Phil’s skin pressed against his. 

“You…” Phil starts, but trails off, eyes roving over Dan. 

Dan watches as Phil watches him. He’s always thought Phil was attractive and, judging by the praise Phil lavishes on him in these moments, he also appreciates how Dan looks. But with sex in the air, Dan knows he has a certain aesthetic. That youthful doe-eyed thing that some people find appealing. Phil is ethereal. Pale and smooth and broad shouldered. Dan finds Phil attractive all the time, but he’s pretty sure Phil only appreciates Dan in a sexual context. Only here, in the space they have borrowed.

When they leave this room, Dan goes back to being Phil’s best friend, just Dan, awkward and lanky and definitely not someone Phil thinks about in those terms. Until they’re back here. But all of that is over soon anyway.

Dan is slowly realising that over time, he has stopped being able to draw that line. He looks at Phil like this all the time; when his back is turned and he can appreciate the sweeping lines of him, when he’s sipping coffee sleepily in the mornings hair mussed and glasses askew, when he’s throwing his head back and laughing at something Dan has said and the curve of his throat is bared and Dan wants nothing more than to nuzzle his head into the crook of it and just _breathe_. He isn’t sure exactly when it started, but he knows it needs to stop. 

Their eyes meet and there’s a second when Dan doesn’t know how he’ll ever be able to look at his friend again without being pulled jerkingly back to this moment. There is so much heat behind Phil’s eyes, it’s loaded and intense in a way that Dan hasn’t seen before. Not with phil, not with anyone. 

Dan reaches for Phil’s belt without being asked, because it’s easier than thinking about how much he wants to reach up and press his lips to Phil’s, and it makes Phil’s gaze drop and the tension of their glances dissipate. 

“Eager.” Phil growls instead. 

And Dan nods. Licking his bottom lip as Phil’s zip comes loose and Dan thrusts a hand into his underwear to curl around Phil’s hard length. 

“God, Dan.” Phil grunt, hips stuttering forward into Dan’s palm. “Slowly.” 

But Dan doesn’t obey. He needs this quick, he needs to see Phil fall apart because he feels like he’s shattering into a million tiny pieces and this is the only way he knows how to put himself back together. 

He moves his hand over Phil quickly, watching as Phil screws his eyes shut and lets his mouth go slack. There’s a rumble in Phil’s throat, the ghost of a moan that Dan caused and Dan smiles and dips his head to lick a wet strip from the base of Phil’s cock to the tip. 

When Phil’s hand comes up to cup the back of his head, fingers threaded into his hair unconsciously, Dan knows he’s got him. He wraps his lips around him and sucks harshly, drawing Phil in as far as he will go, dropping down and bobbing his head rhythmically. 

He allows himself to get lost in this. In Phil’s tiny whimpers and the way his own breathing is impeded by Phil’s length thrusting in and out of his mouth. He’s drawing in tiny bouts of air through his nostrils and he feels lightheaded and floaty. It’s bliss, like sinking into something comfortable. He lets his eyes flutter closed and relaxes into the sensation of his mind quieting, offset by the furious motions of his tongue and lips drawing Phil’s pleasure from him like nothing else matters.

He gets away with it for a little bit, Phil distracted and moving his hips slightly, as though he doesn’t know he’s doing it. But it isn’t long until Phil is gripping his head with soft hands in his hair and easing him backwards. 

“Hey, hey.” Phil says, softly, “Slow. Slow.” 

Dan shakes his head and notices the wetness at the edge of his eyes. “I don’t want to slow down.” 

Phil clenches the hand in his hair, pulling on the sensitive follicles to send a sharp brightness of pain across the crown of Dan’s head. He moans and feels a smile spread across his face. The pain focussing his brain so that he is only aware of the points of his body Phil is currently touching. The noise in his mind stops, clears like breath dissipating on glass.

Phil seems to recognise this, letting his hand drop and moving from Dan’s lap. He gently scoops a hand under Dan’s knee, pulling to part his legs so he can settle between them. He reaches for Dan’s wrists, one in each of his hands, drawing them in a wide circle until they are pinned above his head. Dan bucks up against the grip once before settling. 

“What do you say if you need to stop?” Phil asks. 

“I don’t need to stop.” Dan insists, tasting salt on his lips. 

“Dan…” 

“Phil, please.” Dan chokes, “Don’t stop. Just… Do it. Do everything. Anything. Please. Make the rest of it stop. Ruin me.” 

Phil doesn’t do anything for a moment, and Dan is afraid that he’s pushed it too far, that this has gone so far outside of the realms of what they’d agreed that Phil will get up and leave. But Phil just firms his grip on Dan’s wrists and seems to gather himself. 

“Your hands stay here,” he says, “If they move I’ll go and get something to tie them up with again.” 

Dan can finally breathe, one giant breath filling his lungs for a moment before being released in one long stream. He’s comfortable like this, it feels soothing, giving himself over to Phil’s control. Even if he’ll only get away with it this once more.

“Do you understand?” Phil asks, voice commanding and deep in a way that sends a thrill through Dan’s whole body. 

“Yes.” 

“If you want to stop, you say stop.” Phil warns, despite Dan’s feeble protests, “Just stop. And we’ll stop. For whatever reason.” 

Dan doesn’t know why Phil is so obsessed with stopping. He can’t fathom stopping this, ending it. He wants Phil touching him, pulling at him, pleasure, pain, anything. He wants everything to be Phil, and nothing else. 

“You've been so good for me,” Phil purrs, “I can't even bring myself to punish you any more. I just want--”

“Please.” Dan repeats, sounding broken and desperate.

Mercifully Phil is easing his sweatpants down and over his hips, then kicking off his own jeans so they are now both clad only in underwear, hot skin pressed to hot skin. Dan shivers once, and Phil’s hands swipe over his abdomen. 

“Sensitive.” he says, dipping fingers below the elastic of Dan’s boxers and taking him in hand. 

There’s a groan of relief that makes its way out of Dan’s mouth as Phil deliberately and firmly closes his fist around Dan’s cock and pumps him quickly twice. 

“Please…” Dan whimpers. 

“Please what?” Phil asks, still moving his hand slowly, precum gathering at Dan’s tip adding extra lubrication so that the movements are slick and wet. “You get anything you want, for being so good and not touching yourself while I was gone.” 

Dan gasps and arches in to Phil’s hand. He’s careful to keep his own hands pinned above his head, cursing the solid headboard that has no bars for him to grip. 

“I want…” He manages, “You, inside me.” 

Phil hums, as though he’d been expecting it. “Yeah, have you squirming on my fingers again. You look so pretty like that.” 

“No…” Dan says and Phil has dropped his hand, ceased touching Dan and is reaching to the pocket of his discarded trousers again for the small bottle of lube Dan knows is still hidden there, a little emptier now than it had been. 

“No?” 

“Phil…” Dan raises his head to look Phil dead in the eye. “I want you to fuck me.” 

Phil pauses, bottle perched on his palm, balanced in a weird equilibrium. 

“I--” 

“You said whatever I want,” Dan presses, “This is what I want. And we have protection, I do I mean… in my suitcase.” 

Phil lets out a breath, it’s shaky and Dan can see the moment he closes his eyes and thinks it through. The muscles in his shoulders are taught and Dan aches to reach out and smooth his hands over them, press and knead until the tension is released. What is it about this that is making it so difficult? He’d been the same in the bathroom when Dan had brought it up, blaming it on having forgotten protection but it was a feeble excuse seeing as how they’d been risking everything anyway. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” 

“Why the hell not?” 

“You’re clearly going through something.” Phil says, “And I’m happy to… I mean… That’s what we agreed. This arrangement helps us in times of crisis or boredom or I don’t fucking know… So I’m happy to be a distraction for you if that's what you need, rather than talking about whatever is in your head. But…” 

“But what?” 

“But it might be too much” Phil whispers. 

“It won’t, Phil.” Dan counters, “I can handle it for fucks sake. It’s just sex.” 

Phil looks him in the eyes are if studying him. “Right,” he says, running a hand through his hair and biting his lip, “Just sex.”

“So…” 

“If we're doing this, we're doing it my way.” 

Dan nods, chewing in his bottom lip apprehensively. Phil just stares at the bottle in his hand. 

“Hands stay there,” Phil reminds him and reaches over to Dan's suitcase next to the bed. 

He locates the strip of foil packets easily and raises an eyebrow at Dan as the length of them unfurls. 

“You came prepared.” 

Dan shrugs “3 month tour. One lives in hope.”

A strange look passes over Phil’s face but it doesn't last long and Dan doesn't want to question what it means. He almost looks sad, uncomfortable, and Dan wonders if he's pushing Phil in to something he doesn't want to do.

Phil drops the condoms and the small bottle to the bedspread and moves cat-like over to Dan. When he's next to him again he reaches out and pulls at the final piece of Dan's clothing so that he's finally naked and stretched out. 

Dan shakes off the feeling of being exposed. It's nothing Phil hasn't already seen but the way Phil is staring at him is hungry and Dan isn't sure where to put himself. He fidgets, hands intertwined above his head and he feels the blush rise in his cheeks.

“You're just… Dan you look amazing.”

“You keep saying that.”

“I know,” Phil says with a small smile, “It's true though. I mean, aesthetically you're pleasing to look at.” 

Dan rolls his eyes. “Get on with it then.”

“Have you forgotten,” Phil says moving to settle between Dan's legs again and lowering himself so that he can feel the hard length of Phil press against his own erection with only a thin layer of jersey between them. “This is all happening my way. Be good.” Phil punctuates the sentence with a roll of his hips and Dan lets out a moan. 

“God.”

“If you like.”

Phil leans down to nip at the skin of Dan's neck and he tips his head back, exposing more of the flesh for Phil to run his tongue over. 

And then there is lube on Phil’s fingers and he's slipping his hand downward, pressing carefully at Dan's hole and Dan just lets the rumble in his throat up and out through his mouth as Phil pushes a finger into him. 

“You're so tight.” Phil says but Dan is too incoherent to answer. “But I think you can take another, right?” 

He doesn't move straight away just keeps pumping his single digit in and out in a way that is amazing but nowhere near enough. Dan realises he's waiting for confirmation.

“More” Dan chokes out and Phil smiles against his skin and slips in a second finger alongside the first.

The room is filled with the slick sounds of Phil’s fingers sliding against him, skin on skin, damp flesh pressed to damp flesh, and the rumble of groans from Phil and sharp pangs of wanting moans from Dan. 

“I'm ready” Dan says finally.

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes” Dan chokes out, and doesn't think to ask Phil the same. 

His fingers are gone and Phil is finally naked and rolling on a condom and lowering himself again lining himself up to Dan, ready to be nearer than they've been before. There's a pause and he looks up into Dan's eyes, blue meeting brown, head dipped low enough that the ghost of a kiss could be there except that they don't do that, but Dan wants to. He can feel the edge of Phil’s fringe swinging and tickling the skin of his forehead and they just...stop.

The eye contact feels burning, breaths coming hard and a sheen of sweat coating both of them in their arousal. But Dan sees the flush in Phil’s cheeks and knows it's mirrored on his own, notices the slight tremor running through Phil’s arms where he’s holding himself above Dan. His blue eyes get wider and more panicked the longer they look at each other and the tension is thick and Dan isn't sure how to break it.

“Stop.” Phil says pointedly, before drawing backwards suddenly and sitting on his heels. “We say stop and it stops. So stop.” 

Dan drops his arms from above his head, feeling foolish and abandoned and Phil moves away. He's panting, chest heaving and he scuttles upward, leaning against the headboard and surveying Phil with narrowed eyes. 

“I…”

“I can't do this, Dan. I'm sorry.”

Dan realises, with a crashing feeling in his stomach that is so sudden it hurts, that this Phil isn't the one in control, isn't his dominant alter ego, this is his friend and he's hurting and Dan aches to fix it.

“It's okay.” Dan says, shuffling forward and pulling the sheet over them both. Serious conversations while naked always feel a little awkward, like you're more exposed and vulnerable than you should be. He lays a hand on Phil’s shoulder. It's small and platonic and Phil relaxes into the touch. 

“It's not. I'm sorry.”

“I pushed too far,” Dan insists, “I knew you were uncomfortable and I still… look, you said stop and it stops. You don't have to be sorry for… safewording. ” 

The word feels alien in his mouth. It's not like there's anything particularly kinky about what they're doing, it's tame by so many standards but Dan has enough knowledge of the general concept to be aware that, essentially, that's the parameters that they'd set. It's not just there for him, is it? Stop. And it stops. 

Phil nods. “That's how it works.”

Is it? Dan wonders. Just one word and this is all supposed to go away? He's got no problem stopping this thing tonight, he couldn't continue with that look on Phil’s face, even if Phil swore it was okay. But Dan isn't sure if the wanting will ever go away, he'll always remember it, but it has to be left here, in a foreign country so far from home. It stops now.

“Look, do you want to just go to sleep?” 

“Yes.” 

Phil reaches over for his underwear and goes to the bathroom to sort himself out. Dan gets dressed too before settling in his bed, watching Phil emerge from the bathroom damp faced and slowly, expecting him to cross the short distance to his own bed. 

“Can I…” Phil says instead, looking down to Dan's sheets. 

“Course.” 

They slide into the bed beside each other silently. Settling down into pillows a cold gap between their bodies. Dan doesn't know what Phil is comfortable with and he can hear his shaky breathing so he stays still, trying not to push anything again. 

After a few minutes in suspended silence Dan feels the soft nudge of Phil’s head on his shoulder and he lifts his arm without thinking. Phil crawls into the space and presses against him, feet pressed to his, long lines of him against Dan's side, hip, leg.

They don't talk and Dan falls into a peaceful sleep with Phil cuddled into his body. After everything they've done, all the sweaty stolen moments Dan has spent with Phil behind closed doors, pushing limits and discovering secret things about himself, Dan thinks that finding out Phil fits so perfectly sleeping in his arms might be the most earth shattering thing of all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said I'd resolve the tension. I know I said I'd update on time. But this chapter was tricky. 
> 
> If you want to know more about when chapters are coming, as well as getting sneak peaks posted of upcoming chapters, following me on Twitter and Tumblr at the links below is the way to go.


	5. It's over when the tour is

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A month without uploading she comes back with.... 
> 
> Well, 3.5k of angst tbh. 
> 
> I'm so sorry for the delay in updating this! I hadn't been in the headspace to write angst and some Tumblr friends of mine reminded me that its okay to write fluff if I need to. So I did a couple of one-shots from prompts and then came back to this.
> 
> Enjoy!

Pyjama week is Dan's idea. He'd suggested it on a whim, as an excuse. An excuse to mope around and call it relaxing. To spend time in Phil’s vicinity, hopefully fill the silence that had been stretching around them since that morning at the hotel. 

So here he is, clad in pyjamas scrolling mindlessly down Tumblr and wondering if any of it was worth it. 

He runs his finger across the track pad, watches colourful pictures move upward slowly, not really focussing. Without deciding to let his mind wander there, he's back in that hotel bed instead, waking up a few hours after dropping off, soft dawn light diffused through the sheer curtains. 

He's warm, shifted so that he and Phil are face to face, the sussurant sound of his best friend’s breathing the only thing filling the silence between them. It's warm and he can feel the closeness of Phil’s body, the dips, curves and hard lines of him. 

Phil’s hair is dipped over his face, sweeping strands of it falling softly on his cheek. Before he knows it Dan is reaching out, placing delicate fingers into his dark locks and pushing them slowly back into place. His fingertips glance across Phil’s cheekbone, his eyebrow, forehead, feeling the smooth skin and sighing quietly at the sensation. 

Dan is taken by surprise as Phil blinks awake at the touch and those crystal blue-green irises stare out at him in the dark. His hand pushes further in to Phil’s hair and he watches as Phil’s eyelids dip so that he is staring at Dan from beneath deep lashes. Dan lets his palm cradle the back of Phil’s neck and pulls him closer, removing the space between them and pressing against him from chest to hip, feet tangled together.

With the bang from the kitchen Dan is back in his living room, only the memory of Phil’s blue eyes staring at him lingering in the air. 

“Everything is fine,” he hears Phil call, and it's more words than they've said to each other in days. Everything is not fine. 

There is more than physical space between them now, their tense silence and purposeful avoidance has become a third person in their small flat. Dan can hardly stand it, the noise in his head building and buzzing more with each passing day. He aches to reach out to Phil, slide into his personal space and regain some of what has been lost. But it's not acceptable now, the arrangement coming to a quiet yet mutually agreed end. 

He tries to not think back to that morning, their last morning. He tries not to think of Phil melting into his touch and them moving closer without words. Of gentle stroking hands across his back, shoulders, waist. Of how his hands had followed a similar path across Phil, feeling goosebumps raise on his arms as his trailed a light light pressure there. He tries not to remember them sharing breaths in the silence, how no one spoke out loud but that his imagination, his yearning, had filled in the gaps as he tried to push adoration into Phil’s skin with his own.

Instead he closes his laptop, sets it down determinedly and decides to rebel against Pyjama week. It was stupid idea anyway, locking himself up here with his issues.

He makes his way to the kitchen where Phil is on his hands and knees sweeping up the remains of a smashed glass. 

“I'm going for coffee” he announces. Phil has spoken, he has spoken, it's almost like a conversation except that Phil doesn't look up at him, doesn't respond. With a quick nod he speaks into the solid wall of Phil’s silence. “Okay.”

He leaves Phil to his sweeping and dresses quickly. His hair's a disaster, he hasn't straightened it and it's lying in messy waves atop his head. Despite what the internet thinks, or what he'd told the internet, he doesn't _hate_ his hair, he's just not sure if he can pull it off. But it's too late now, he doesn't want to linger in this tense environment for much longer, he needs to go out into the fresh air and breathe in. He needs for the wind to blow away this lingering want burning through him at every turn. It shouldn't be like this, when did a random fling turn into a thing that could disrupt his life so? It's time to move on, because this situation is far from ideal.

It's probably Dan that's perpetuating the tension. Maybe he's projecting it onto Phil, because it's not like Phil has broken any rules. It was always meant to end, wasn't it? Was always meant to be a temporary arrangement to tide them over. Now they're back things can return to normal. Except that Dan isn't sure what normal is anymore. 

The trip to the coffee shop is too quick. He doesn't have enough time for the cool near-winter air to cleanse him before the steam filled humidity of the caffeinated room swallows him. 

He can't bring himself to order his usual, reminding him of sofas by condensation covered windows and hips pressed to hips, shared laughter and gazes that linger a fraction too long. Or else the incessant stopping in every American town, locating the Starbucks on every corner because Phil had to know if their favourite drink was different at this one, or this one, using it as a means of escape, a few stolen moments of just them, framed in steamed milk and caramel syrup.

Instead he orders black coffee and tries to convince himself it suits his aesthetic. Except he's reminded that it does, just coffee, without anything added to make it fun. It's how he feels, stripped down to bare bones robbed of anything that would make him palatable. He shouldn't be out of the house. 

The girl behind the counter smiles at him as he orders and then lingers in his eye line while her coworker sets to making his drink. She's pretty, Dan thinks, long dark hair and deep brown eyes, the polo shirt of her uniform fitted in a way that should perk his interest but doesn't. 

She maintains small talk as he waits, and Dan is mostly convinced he manages to keep up. She doesn't recognise him which is a bonus, because he's not sure he could deal with the inevitable ‘where's Phil?’ as if they are attached at the hip. Maybe they were once but things are different now, they have to be. 

“Here” She says, taking the cup from her colleague and pausing with a sharpie in hand. “Name?” 

“Um…” He glances around because surely the name on the cup thing is to distinguish one cup from another in bulk orders, or else help it be directed to the right person in a crowd? Except that the coffee shop is empty and Dan only ordered one drink. “Dan.”

“Well, Dan” She says scribbling on the side of the cup “Call me okay?” 

Dan takes the cup and sure enough, her phone number is written on the side with a ‘Amy <3’ next to it. “Um, yeah, I'll… sure. Have a good day.” 

That last bit is a left-over from America but it feels like something safe to land on, something innocuous. 

The cup is warm in his hand, a slight burn on his palm in contrast to the cold air now he's back on the street. The cup feels tainted, like sipping from it would mean compliance. 

It hits him at once that he doesn't want to call. It's so clear to him that he won't that it shocks him to think that a few months ago he would have. It would have been easy to call this girl, take her for a drink (not coffee of course, he'd joke) and then easily persuade her with wit, charm, and a smile littered with carefully aimed dimples. He could have taken her back to their flat, giggling and close, clinging to each other on his bed sheets. It would have been easy. 

He'd been in a dry spell. He feels a punch to his gut as it dawns on him that it wasn't an accident. It can't have been mere unfortunate circumstances because here he is with someone's number given to him so easily that he knows, he really does now, that it must have been self inflicted. And he doesn't want to think about any of the reasons why he would have purposefully avoided romantic entanglements. Except that he was happy. Content with his lot in life, with his flat and his job and his best friend. 

But now it's ruined. Smudged with the knowledge of what it could have been, 6 years of friendship overwritten with the realisation that he'd been content with what they had without ever asking for more until he'd had it. Like never knowing what chocolate is like and being content with fruit. Both are delicious and will cure a sugar craving but God, chocolate.

Suddenly, he realises, his moments of happiness have changed him, soul deep, just like he'd known they would. And he’s back in that hotel bed once again, remembering. 

He gazes into blue eyes, holding the raptured stare of a proverbial deer in headlights, and waits for what feels like an infinite moment in time. But all too Soon Phil is ducking his head in the smallest of nods and Dan is moving closer, hitching one leg up and over Phil’s hip and rolling them both over. Here Dan hovers above his best friend, coming to rest gently in his lap, one leg either side of Phil’s. And they don’t kiss, and they don’t talk, and they are attached in every goddamned sense of the word except the one that matters the most and Dan knows, without needing to ask, without needing to hear it out loud, that this will be the last time anything will ever happen between them. And he needs to savour it. 

He runs flat palms over Phil’s skin, up over his collarbone and tips forward to rest his forehead there, so close he can hear the hitch in Phil’s breathing as he presses wet, chapped lips against his sternum. 

It isn’t fair, but Dan never thought that it would be. It isn’t fair how Phil is soft and pliant beneath him finally. How he can feel his body responding, hot and hard. It isn’t fair that they are only separated by the thin layer of their underwear and he can feel Phil’s own hardness in response. He moves his hips experimentally and hears a soft gasp turn into a moan in Phil’s throat. 

This is a moment suspended. Shrouded in the this room, in these sheets, Dan lets the thoughts clouding his mind with indecision and doubt melt away. Instead, he gives in without words and they cling to each other, fingers curling absent-mindedly around any part of each other that is nearest.

And then there is motion. He can’t get enough of Phil’s skin and he is littering kisses over his chest, circling a nipple with his tongue before trailing a path to the pale column of Phil’s throat, catching skin between his teeth gently enough not to leave a mark, but enough to send a short sting. Phil lets out another moan, more audible and Dan aches to press his lips to Phil’s and swallow the sound. 

It’s only to distract himself that he trails a hand downwards and gently eases Phil’s underwear downwards so that he is bare and exposed to Dan’s roaming gaze. He takes a moment to appreciate, drinking in a sight he knows he won’t be allowed again, feeling thankful that he even gets to have this at all. 

Then he feels Phil’s hands on his own waistband and he lifts his hips, shimmying and moving to help as Phil removes the only barrier between them. 

With a start he is back on the street, cooling coffee cup forgotten but still in his hand and staring at his own front door. He shakes the memory from his head, focusses back in and unlocks the door, climbs the never-ending stairs to their flat and lets himself in.

The kitchen floor is clear when he enters and he abandons the coffee cup on the side, trying to resist the lingering thoughts of that morning from swimming around his subconscious. But it’s there, pressing on the periphery of his mind so that he keeps experiencing stolen moments of it in snatchs. The sound of Phil’s breathing, the soft sensation of his fingers against Dan’s hip and thigh as he stripped him bare. Then the all encompassing, overwhelming feeling of pressing ankle to shoulder against Phil, swaddled in the warm of him, skin on skin and limbs tangled together in ways he didn’t fully understand. 

He remembers the way Phil had lifted a hand to grip at Dan, try to pull back some semblance of control but Dan had curled tentative fingers around his wrist and settled his arm back down against the heated sheets. Phil had gazed at him, perplexed and uncertain for a moment before complying with the silent request to let Dan just do this, to just _let _him.__

__His thoughts are interrupted by the real Phil walking into the kitchen as Dan is trying to leave it. They almost collide, Dan throwing an arm out to steady himself and catching on Phil. He draws back quickly, as though burned, and Phil flinches at the brief contact._ _

__“Sorry,” Dan says hurriedly, stepping aside to let Phil pass._ _

__He watches as Phil’s eyes land on the coffee cup and tut as he picks it up to throw it away. His eyebrows knit together and he looks passively upset for a moment, weighing the cup in his hand before hurling it into the bin with more force than is necessary._ _

__“You could at least clean up after yourself” he says, bitingly._ _

__Dan bites his lip and doesn’t respond._ _

__“Sorry, were you wanting to keep the cup?”_ _

__Dan feels a pain in his chest, tightening as Phil rounds on him._ _

__“Phil, please.”_ _

__“What?” Phil asks, “What now?”_ _

__“Just, leave it.”_ _

__“Sure,” Phil says, “I’ll leave it.”_ _

__And whatever Phil came into the kitchen for is forgotten because he’s storming past Dan again and he waits for a few seconds, listening to the thud of Phil’s heavy footfall down the corridor before the echoing sound of his bedroom door slamming shut reverberates through the flat._ _

__Is Phil torturing him on purpose? He’s the one that became distant and sullen after that morning. The end of the show brought the end of whatever truce they’d called and Phil had retreated, backed away so sharply that Dan’s head was spinning from it. He’d had so much and been so close and then felt wrecked and abandoned as Phil withdrew himself. All because Dan had lost himself that morning, and Phil had been lost too, drowning in each other, pretending that it wasn’t temporary. And for a moment Dan had believed it._ _

__Phil finally still and submissive beneath him, Dan rocking back to sit upright and run palms down over Phil’s abdomen, taking Phil in hand and watching his eyes flutter shut and his bottom lip slip between his teeth._ _

__They hadn’t spoken, letting the silence wrap around them and protect them from the reality outside. And Dan had tipped forward, brought his own length in line with Phil’s and wrapped a hand clumsily around both of them, stroking awkwardly upwards._ _

__But then Phil’s hand had joined him. Interlocking their fingers and covering the space around them Dan couldn’t reach, creating a joint circle of tight heat. Together they stroked slowly over themselves, each groaning at the sensation of moving in sync, slipping into it with ease as they did so many situations, finding each other’s rhythm and matching in new and unexpected ways._ _

__They moved their hands and hips in a gentle rocking, bodies coming together over and over, building slowly to a delicious point, the tension rising. When muscles began to tense, when the damp heath between them felt tangible, sweat beading on their foreheads, hair twisted and tangled. The space between their hands was slick with pre-cum, but from who they couldn’t tell. Everything was mingling so that Dan wasn’t sure if the throbbing he felt was from his own pleasure or from Phil’s._ _

__Their eyes met as they reach their peak. Blue eyes met brown and Dan felt the moisture gather in the corners of his eyes and almost thought he saw the same in Phil’s but he dropped his head to hide his face. Forehead resting against Phil’s chest, sweat gathered on both of them so that Dan could hardly breathe in the humidity of it._ _

__And Phil leaned in close, breath ghosting over Dan’s ear as he whispered the first words of the morning._ _

__“Come with me.”_ _

__And Dan did. Spilling over their joint fists just as Phil did, both panting and throwing their heads back. Their hands worked each other through it without needing to ask, hips undulating as they came down from the high of each other, slickness adding to slickness from their mingling orgasms and Dan heard himself cry out and let the tears caught in his eyes fall to his cheeks._ _

__As his brought his head back down Phil was staring at him again and Dan, without thinking, leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss to the corner of Phil’s mouth. Mostly his cheek, so as not to break any rules, but near enough that Dan felt like he’d gotten away with something._ _

__And the retreat hadn’t happened straight away. Phil allowed him to bask in the euphoria of the moment for a while, still suspended in their borrowed timeline, here in the hotel bed that didn’t exist on a plane of reality._ _

__But all too soon they’d had to rise from that place, shower and dress and put themselves back together, reshape themselves into friends. And they didn’t discuss it, because they had become experts in avoiding, in denying whatever took place in their stolen moments._ _

__The divide had happened later. As Phil slowly drew into himself, seeming angry and hesitant, irritated by the slip in his control. And Dan had tried to withdraw, to save himself the pain of knowing it was over, tried to gather himself into something that resembled how they’d been before all of this started. But he couldn’t._ _

__And now Phil is in his bedroom, and Dan is standing in the hallway, alone and uncertain. But it won’t do, this is not how it’s supposed to be. Because whatever else has happened they’re friends aren’t they? He could put all this away, cram it into a box and shut the lid tight, bury it at the back of his memories in a place he doesn’t have to visit. But he can’t remove Phil. Because Phil is part of him, they have been a part of each other for so long that this physical thing is nothing compared to the impact they’ve had on building the other into the person they are today._ _

__Maybe it was a mistake to bring sex in to it. Maybe they have found the line that they should not cross. And it won’t be as simple as stepping back across it but Dan has to try. Because if he has to weigh up never having sex with Phil against never having Phil at all, he knows what he’s going to pick._ _

__Decisively, he makes his way to Phil’s bedroom door and raises his hand to knock._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter is a little different but I promise its building to something! 
> 
> I just want to say that the response to this has been amazing. There's only one more chapter to go after this and honestly I'll be sad to see it go. I'm already brainstorming some one-shot follow ups if that is something you guys would like to see but for now, I hope you enjoyed the angst that honestly took me forever to write. 
> 
> I think I just don't like to see the boys sad.
> 
> Drop by my [Tumblr](http://agingphangirl.tumblr.com) to say hi!


	6. There are no rules

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. We are finally here.  
> I apologise for this long note. It's unacceptable but I find I'm quite emotional about the end of this so it can't be helped. 
> 
> Firstly, the biggest of thank yous to [adorkablephil](http://archiveofourown.org/users/kimberly_a) who, while writing the most amazing fic of her own has been my constant support and genius editor for this chapter. I honestly don't think I could have finished this without her. She has offered insightful and constructive feedback at every turn and I am eternally grateful. Go read her fics, they're amazing. 
> 
> (Although I would like to add that I have jumped the gun and posted this before the final proofread because I am impatient. Hopefully I'll get any and all typos corrected soon but for now, hopefully there aren't TOO many. Kimberly is not to be blamed for my bad typing!)
> 
> Secondly, thank you to all of you for enjoying this and commenting! Interaction with each and every one of you is what keeps us fic writers coming back and writing more fics so, leave comments, come say hi on [Tumblr](http://agingphangir.tumblr.com) I love to hear what you guys think.
> 
> Finally, I just wanted to let you all know that I have taken on the project of posting a 'fic a day in June' 2017. These will range from drabbles to full one-shots so keep an eye out for that. Again, my [Tumblr](http://agingphangir.tumblr.com) or [Twitter](http://twitter.com/agingfangirl) are probably the best places for those updates. 
> 
> Anyway, enough from me. Enjoy!

Dan doesn’t get as far as knocking. The door is flung open again mere minutes after Phil has slammed it closed and his flatmate steps unceremoniously into Dan’s space, colliding with him for the second time that day. 

“What are you--Get out of the way, Dan. I’m going out.” 

Dan shakes his head and swallows thickly. Phil’s dressed now but he’s still wearing his glasses, paired with a black t-shirt and his red jacket. The combination is just playing into all of the things Dan appreciates about his friend, and it temporarily makes it hard for him to talk, frozen and overwhelmed. 

“Move.” Phil repeats, and his voice is so low and angry that it presses in on him. The effect is so startling that something in Dan snaps.

“No,” he grunts, raising his arms to bunch his fists in Phil’s shirt and hold him steady. “You’re not running away, I’m not running away. For fucks sake Phil, we’re… we need to…” 

He knows they need to talk. He can feel all the things he wants to say trapped at the back of his tongue, but his eyes are drifting along Phil’s face, catching sight of his lips. They’re pulled up close to each other, the heat of Phil coming in waves, hot and angry and radiating through him. His chest is rising and falling, physical and affected by the proximity. 

He’s so distracted that it takes him a while to notice the heave of Phil’s breathing too, the pant and labor of it, coupled with the wide eyed stare locked on to Dan’s face. 

“Fuck it,” Dan breathes and, uncurling his fists slightly to allow Phil to escape if he needs to, dips his neck to bring his lips to Phil’s. 

There is a gasp as their lips collide, Phil sucking in air rapidly, and Dan traps it in his mouth, willing it to stay there. Maybe it will prolong this moment, air drawn into Phil’s lungs can sustain him, prevent him from shoving Dan away as quickly as he might have otherwise. 

It’s entirely new, this feeling. The sinking twist of his stomach. Fear response. It makes him want to both pull away and grip Phil closer. He settles for sliding an arm around Phil’s waist. To his surprise, Phil is responding, kissing back urgently. It’s messy and awkward, their teeth rattle off each other for a fraction of a second before they find the right angle. But when they do, it’s bliss. 

Dan probably moans, he can’t tell. And Phil pushes at him, wanting to move him backwards against his own bedroom doorframe. But Dan plants his feet, because he can’t allow himself to get overwhelmed by Phil this time. Everything in his head is Phil, Phil, Phil and he knows that if he lets it slip again, if he becomes pliant and submissive at Phil’s feet he’ll lose all resolve to talk about this.

The kiss had probably been a mistake, but he’d had a moment of weakness and now that it’s happening he can’t bring himself to make it stop.

Phil growls into Dan’s mouth at Dan’s resistance. His hands fly wildly over Dan’s chest, raking harsh fingertips across him before curling almost painfully around his biceps. He doesn’t break the kiss, but he does give a hefty shove, enough to topple Dan backwards. Without missing a beat, he follows him over, backing Dan against the opposite wall of the hallway, barely missing the sharp corner of Dan’s bedroom door frame. 

When Dan’s back collides with the wall, the air in his lungs is expelled and his head swims as Phil roughly shoves his thigh between Dan’s legs and presses deliciously upwards into the growing hardness at his groin.

He wants this. He does. It would be so easy to hand over the control to Phil, to bury themselves in a repeat performance of what had happened on tour without much thought. But that’s the problem isn’t it? It’s supposed to be over, they’re not supposed to do this any more. But it’s spilling over into their non-tour space now.

Dan could rationalise it, that it’s pyjama week, they aren’t technically back yet, not fully settled into their usual routine. There is still an element of tour-hangover threaded through them, providing an excuse. But that wouldn’t make it okay, to prolong this for once more, twice more, a handful of a snippets of Phil. Never the whole of it, never everything he wants. 

The steady thump of that want in Dan’s chest is clouding his ability to understand why this is a bad idea, so he needs to put an end to this now, before it goes any further. 

But Phil is moving his mouth now, working lips and tongue down Dan’s neck. And Dan is sliding his hands into Phil’s hair, threading his fingers into it and tipping his head back, baring his throat to Phil’s teeth as he sinks them in. 

“Ah-” Dan breathes, the sound escaping him. This small sounds works as a catalyst, the release of it setting everything else free. “God, I can’t do this…. Jesus, Phil Just...” 

So he drags his hands from Phil’s head, spreads his fingers wide to come down on Phil’s chest, pushing firmly. To his credit, Phil stops immediately, retreating but keeping steadying hands on Dan’s shoulders.

“Stop.”

“What? Dan, what’s up?” he’s saying, nothing but concern and worry. The picture of Dan’s best friend. Which honestly, just makes it worse.

“Stop,” Dan says again, tears springing hotly, and falling down his cheeks as he screws his eyes shut. “Stop Phil, fucking stop all of this. We can’t just… can’t you see how fucked up this is?” 

“Dan…”

“No,” Dan replies, almost at a shout, and Phil takes a step back, dropping his arms uselessly to his sides. “Don’t. Just don’t. I can’t deal with this, it’s all just messed up, I’m sick of you and this and what you do to me.” 

Phils face crumples inwards as though pained. His eyes dart over Dan’s face as if searching for something, anything, to assuage it.

“Dan, I never did anything you didn’t agree to… Dan, please. I asked… you said...” His voice sounds twisted around the words as though they happen between bursts of something sharp in his throat. It sounds like guilt, like regret.

“I know what I said,” Dan agrees, “I did, I wanted it. I...God.. I still want it. I want it, Phil, so bad. All the time. That’s the problem, don’t you see?” 

“Dan,” Phil says again softly, there might be relief hidden in there somewhere now Dan has assured him that he hasn’t done the unthinkable and forced all of this on him. But mainly, Dan thinks, he’s probably just trying to calm him down. “I don’t understand, what are you talking about?” 

“I’m sick of the rules, Phil! I can’t abide by them any more. But without them, what the hell do we even have?” 

“I--”

“No,” Dan interrupts before Phil can insist about anything, before he can talk circles or, god forbid, kiss him again or come any closer because Dan is barely holding on to his resolve as it is. And he can see where his hands have tracked paths through Phil’s hair, it’s ruffled and Phil’s cheeks are flushed and god, all he wants to do is pull Phil back against him and let him do whatever he wants to. He wants Phil to take him apart and make all of the turmoil in his head just, stop. “Don’t try Phil, cus I’ll give in. I will.”

“Dan,” Phil says, a little more firmly. “Let me talk for fucks sake.” 

It’s the swearing more than anything that makes Dan’s mouth snap shut. 

Phil is almost back in his commanding role. He doesn't come closer, it isn’t menacing, but he’s firm. “Slow down. Take a breath.” 

He pauses, and Dan realises Phil’s waiting for him to do just that. Slowly, he drags a ragged breath in and lets it out unevenly. Until he does, he isn’t even aware how erratic his breathing has become, panicky and flustered. Phil waits, nodding slightly, and Dan takes another slow breath. It’s smoother this time, his shaking and frantic thoughts slow a little. After a few more breaths, he’s almost calm.

Phil waits for Dan’s eyes to meet his again before continuing. 

“Right,” Phil says, folding his arms in front of him. It’s subtly dominating, bringing Dan to the edge of that space again, he can feel it roll over him. It would be easier, to let Phil take control like this. Soothing even, when he knows it isn’t sexual. But it isn’t what he wants, he can’t just keep doing this. “Start from the beginning. What’s going on?” 

“I just…” Dan sighs, “I just can’t do this anymore.” 

“Then we stop,” Phil shrugs, “You know that. We had stopped. _You_ kissed _me._ ” 

Dan nods. “I know, I’m sorry. I know I’m not supposed to. I know it’s against the rules.” 

Phil’s brows knit slightly and he cocks his head. 

“You said that before,” he says, an edge to his voice that hints he’s becoming frustrated with Dan’s rambling incoherent thoughts, “You’re going to have to explain it a bit more. What rules?” 

And Dan’s mouth drops. Surely Phil can’t be serious. 

“The… You, we... “ he takes another breath, unprompted this time. Phil doesn’t know the rules. Has Dan made them up? “There are things… we aren’t allowed.” 

Phil’s tongue peeks out to lick at his bottom lip. “Okay.” he says, “Tell me about these rules.” 

“I don’t…” 

“No,” Phil says, his eyes hard now and trained on Dan. “That’s how this works. You want it to stop, it stops. That was my only rule, Dan. So if there are some other ones you’re aware of please, enlighten me.” 

With that Phil turns and makes his way into his bedroom, stalking the few steps it takes to reach his bed. He pulls his jacket off unceremoniously, dumping it on the floor and settling on his mattress, glaring at the space beside him. It’s time now, Dan thinks, the jumble narrative they’ve been expounding about all of this needs to stop, because whatever frustration he’s feeling about it all, he’s beginning to see it echoed in Phil’s expression too. It’s time to end it.

Dan steels himself, blinking rapidly and squaring his shoulders. He follows Phil in, dropping to sit opposite him at the bottom of the bed, and drawing his legs up. 

“We don’t kiss, we don’t talk about it…” he says quickly so he won’t lose his nerve, but he runs out of steam as he sees the look of incomprehension on Phil’s face.

“Whoa,” Phil says with a raised palm, “Slow down there. I mean… well, Dan... until a few moments ago we _were_ kissing. And… correct me if I’m wrong, but what we’re doing right now, that’s talking about it, isn’t it?” 

“On tour,” Dan insists, “On tour we never…” 

Phil’s face looks as if he’s beginning to understand, like small moments are slotting into place. But he doesn’t seem happy about it.

“Right.”

Dan can’t seem to find any more words, and something in Phil’s gaze makes him think they wouldn’t be welcome anyway.

“You left.” Phil spits, he doesn’t raise his voice but Dan can tell he’s pissed off. “In the morning, after… the first night, you left. And I tried to talk to you, in the dressing room later I…” 

Dan opens his mouth to say something, but is cut off by Phil. 

“No.” Phil says sharply, it’s not loud, but it’s resonant, bucking no refusal. “Please let me talk. You’re complaining we didn’t talk about it, so here we are, talking about it. But this time I’m going to get to say my bit. So shut up, please, and listen.” 

Dan nods slowly, dropping his knees and letting his legs stretch out in front of him. They are alongside Phil’s and he wants to press a foot to Phil’s thigh, but he doesn’t. 

“After that first night,” Phil starts, “You left in the morning, you didn’t want to talk about it and then later... God later Dan you dropped to your knees in the hotel room and how could I… “ he groans slightly, eyes slipping shut as if remembering. “I knew I should have resisted, but you were so fucking gorgeous and willing. I knew I shouldn’t but… I’d done so well resisting it when we met because I knew it was wrong and I think I just ran out of patience.” 

Phil drags a hand down his face roughly, skewing his hair even more in a way that Dan knows would irritate him if he knew. 

“I asked you,” Phil whispers finally, “At every turn Dan, every time anything happened I asked you… and I knew I shouldn’t but, you kept saying yes. And it was good, wasn’t it? It was good.” 

“It was so good.” Dan agrees, attempting a smile. 

“The kissing thing just sort of happened. I don’t know why, at first it didn't seem weird, and I didn’t really think about it. Then I noticed that we never did and eventually I thought it was just a quirk of yours, or a choice. So I didn’t try it. I figured if you wanted it you would do it.” 

“But what about-- “ 

“What?” Phil says helplessly, “What, Dan? There’s more? This was supposed to be simple. It was just an arrangement to tide us over on tour, when did it get so complicated?” 

Dan almost doesn’t want to answer, because he’s been wrong so far. About so many things. Surely he can’t be wrong about everything, because it is supposed to be simple, no strings, and here he is fucking it up. He’s the reason it got complicated, but he can’t admit to it when Phil is looking at him with a strange sort of distress in his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he replies honestly. “We weren’t supposed to get attached, you said we weren’t exclusive. I know.”

“I said?” 

“Yes!” Dan insists, nodding this time because there is no way Phil can talk circles around him with this one. He’d said the words himself. “About that girl... That Sarah or whatever.” 

Phil runs a hand through his hair and narrow his eyes. “Do you mean Sian?” 

“Yeah, her.” 

“And I said…” 

“That it wasn’t an exclusive arrangement.” 

“Well, it wasn’t,” Phil shrugs, finally.

“So you admit that was a rule.” 

“No,” Phil corrects, “It wasn’t a rule.” 

Dan sighs and closes his eyes. “This is ridiculous.” 

“I agree.” 

They pause and it’s usually the moment that would be filled with a giggle at the absurdity of their rapid fire bickering, but they don’t laugh. They don’t say anything. Dan stares at Phil’s bedspread and tries to figure out how they can possibly sort this all out. He wants him, but not like this.

“Why would I make it a rule for you to sleep with some girl?” Phil asks. 

He looks genuinely perplexed, this isn’t something he’s saying to prolong the fight or confuse Dan further, he really thinks that’s what’s going on. 

“Me?” Dan retorts, “You mean you.” 

“I didn’t sleep with her,” Phil says, shock pouring over his face in a way that makes Dan cringe. 

“No, you just wanted to make sure I knew that you could. That it wasn’t exclusive.” 

“Are you--You’re serious…” Phil shakes his head as if Dan is the most stupid person alive. 

“Fine,” Dan allows, “It wasn't a rule, not a specific one, but you did say it.”

“Yes,” Phil agrees, “I did. But not so I could sleep with other people, Jesus Dan, I said it to remind myself that _you_ could. Maybe just to get a bit of my own back.”

“Me?”

Phil nods solemnly, his eyes wide. “Sian liked you. She asked to meet you, and I tried to… well, I thought I was helping. Then you were being weird and horrible to her and I thought… I thought you had some hang up about ducking out on our deal or whatever so I made you be nice to her.”

“But you…” Dan does press a foot against Phil's thigh now, rubbing socked toes along the seam of his jeans. “We had sex in the bathroom” he finishes lamely. 

Phil smiles at that and his eyes go dark as if remembering. “I know.” 

“Pretty weird thing to do if you were trying to get me to sleep with Sian.”

“I wasn't trying to get you to sleep with Sian” Phil says, his gaze zeroed in on Dan's eyes in a way that's unnerving and making Dan's stomach twists in delightful ways. “I was trying to give you a reason not to.”

“Fuck,” Dan breathes, scrubbing a hand down his face because this is just all getting so confused and mixed up in his head.

“I couldn't… I shouldn't have. I know that now, that's what messed this all up Dan, not some stupid rules.”

“What? Fingering me in a bathroom? You think that's what caused this.”

It’s petty, to use the coarse obvert language that cuts through the soft tiptoeing around they’re doing, but he’s all twisted up and it’s easier, to just make a crass statement that Phil can balk at.

Instead, Phil shakes his head, moving along the bed to crawl over Dan, face inches away. “I don't seem to want to share you.”

Dan puts his tongue between his teeth and bites down. 

“Fuck Dan, you wear on my self control all the time.” He reaches out with his hand to gently sweep Dan's fringe from his eyes. “At every turn I’ve been trying to stop myself because I know it’s selfish but Dan… I can’t bear the thought of someone else touching you.” 

The sentiment tastes sour on Dan’s tongue. Phil is looking at Dan hungrily but he can’t help but think it’s hollow and temporary. It’s how Phil always looks at him in these moments when offering up this transient thing, as though he is beautiful and wanted, but it’s only ever here, only ever when Dan is a short-lived distracted, never as anything permanent.

“I can’t do this,” Dan says suddenly, surprising even himself. He is breathing hard and letting the words fall from his mouth without care. “I’m sorry.”

He leaps out from under Phil, who is jostled backwards by the sudden movement. He doesn’t look back, but he can only imagine the expression on Phil’s face at not getting what he wants. It isn’t fair of Phil to offer this, and he won’t give in to it again and again. 

Dan wait--” Phil calls after him, but Dan doesn’t stick around to hear the end. 

Instead, he crosses the short distance of their landing, finds haven in his own room and slams the door behind him.

He sinks down on his own bed and lets his forehead drop into his hands. He doesn’t know how to do this, to want Phil but to keep himself whole. He could give himself over, take whatever Phil is offering to him but it doesn’t feel fair. Not to himself. There should be some power in giving that control to Phil, in it being his decision to let Phil have his way, but he’s so confused that it doesn’t feel like he’s allowing anything, it feels like Phil is taking it. He just feels weak and overrun and erased. 

It’s not even Phil’s fault. He’s right, at every turn Phil had asked and at every turn Dan had said yes but it’s rooted in the physical, in Dan being selfish with Phil and careless with his own heart. 

He gets a few moments of peace before there’s the inevitable knock at the door. He doesn’t answer it, but he doesn’t tell Phil to go away either, so he’s not that surprised when Phil opens it and walks in. 

“You wanted to talk,” Phil says, folding his arms, “I’m sorry I tried to kiss you. I know that’s not what you want.” 

“Oh for fucks sake Phil,” Dan says standing again and throwing his arms in the air, “It is what I want, that’s the problem.” 

“I don’t understand.” 

“Of course you don’t,” Dan says, a bubble of a laugh making its way up and out of his throat, but it’s followed by a prickling in the corner of his eyes that threatens tears are closer by. “Everything was fine, do you know that? Sure I’d thought about it a couple of times, over the years, but honestly, it wasn’t a big deal, not having sex with you. We were friends. It was fine.” 

“We are friends.” 

Dan laughs again, but it sounds hollow and alien to his own ears, like it’s not even his laugh. “Is that what we are Phil, because it sure as hell doesn’t seem like it. It seems like all you’re doing is taking everything from me, and I’m stupid and I let you because I want you so damn much.” 

Phil looks like he wants to say something, lets his mouth open, but he mustn’t find the words because he just lets it sit there, empty and quiet. 

“You say there are no rules,” Dan continues instead, “And you move up close and tell me you don’t want anyone else to touch me and fuck, Phil, I don’t want anyone else to touch me either. But where does that leave me? I have no goddamned control over any of this, you just keep taking it from me. And I keep letting you!”

By the end Dan is almost shouting. The vibration of his words echoing back from the high ceilings, tinkling through his light fitting, rebounding in the hollow of his piano. 

“Stop and it stops,” Phil says quietly, letting the words slip in while Dan’s still sound around the room. 

“But it doesn’t stop,” Dan shakes his head. “I keep waiting for it to stop. But even after I fucked everything up at the hotel, even after I pushed and pushed, just to see how far I could take it until you snapped, I still wanted you. And I hate it. I hate that I want you so badly because it’ll always be like this, you making your mind up about what happens and when it happens and I’ll just go along with it.”

“I’m not… Dan…” 

“You are,” Dan insists, “And I know, I kissed you first today even after you’d stopped everything and I’m to blame for that. But you can’t ask me to do this again, that isn’t why I came to find you, it isn’t why I wanted to talk. I already fucked that up once.”

“How?” Phil asks.

“I pushed you. At the hotel. The bathroom didn't fuck up the deal,” Dan says, eyes lowering, “I did.”

“You did?” Phil says, taking half a step forward before thinking better of it. 

“I was mad, about Sian, and about you just sauntering back like I had absolutely no say in what happened between us. But despite that, I didn't want it to stop. So I think I pushed you, to try and prove it to myself, that you didn’t want me like I wanted you.”

“Sauntering back? Dan…” Phil’s face screws up, “It was a game… I thought you wanted…” 

“It was a game.” Dan nods, “But we weren’t on equal footing, Phil. If we’d been… more than we were, if it was more than just a deal... But we didn’t have any agreement like that did we?”

“I didn’t mean to make you feel like that,” Phil offers simply.

“I just don’t think this works.” Dan murmurs, biting his lip. “Stop and it stops. That's the rule, and you made it clear that you wanted it over. I fucked up then by pushing you to want it over, and I fucked it up today by kissing you. So… you can’t say things like you don’t want to share me, you can’t keep offering me tiny pieces of this without some kind of map to navigate it all. ”

“Look at me.” Phil's voice is barely commanding, a mere shadow of what Dan knows it can be. It’s more the voice of his friend, his housemate, the person Dan cares for more than anyone else in this world.

Dan sighs, lifting his head. He subconsciously takes a step forward, almost into Phil’s space but not quite.

“I didn't want it over.” Phil confesses, “I just couldn't bring myself to, you know, be with you like that...knowing that it might only be that once.”

Dan wants to imagine all of the things that could mean. But hope is a dangerous thing, it weighs heavily on him. 

“What do you need from me,” Phil asks earnestly, “Is it just better to draw a line under all of this? Just make it so it never happened?” 

Honestly it might be. And Dan knows what he says next could be the beginning of a whole load more trouble but Phil is just standing there with his hair all askew and a softness about him that Dan wants to burrow into and he knows he won’t be able to let it go completely. 

“I think we need to renegotiate the terms of the deal.”

“Renegotiate?” There is a lightness to Phil’s tone, it could be relief.

“We need to be more explicit about the boundaries we’re setting,” Dan clarifies. He clears his throat, readies himself for the next bit. “I… I need to know how much of this I get.” 

Dan needs to put an end to hoping. Perhaps if they can say out loud where the lines are being drawn, he’ll be able to accept it. If he knows what he’s allowed, and he’s able to claw back a bit of his own by setting some rules himself, well then they just might be able to continue this ultimately doomed thing, just for a bit longer. It feels like putting off the inevitable, but Dan is running out of ways to convince himself he’d be able to let it go.

Phil shakes his head. “I don’t want to renegotiate.” 

Dan feels his stomach drop. Phil still wants it to be over, and it probably is for the best, but part of him had hoped that Phil might consider prolonging it. However unfair it is to both of them.

“I don’t want another deal, with rules and boundaries and neither of us being quite sure what’s allowed,” Phil continues. “I think I just need to be brave.” 

“Brave enough to end it?” Dan asks, “I understand.” He sighs and wipes his hands on his jeans.

“No,” Phil says, shaking his head and stepping up close to Dan, “No not to end it. Dan… I need to be brave enough to tell you that I want everything, that I always have.”

Dan doesn’t move when Phil raises a hand to cup his cheek, doesn’t speak when Phil gazes into his eyes as if waiting for an answer. 

“I don’t know how to do this,” Phil stammers, “I’ve never known how to do this. Especially not with you. I can do the sex bit, that’s always been easy but the rest of it… I have no idea. It’s probably why when faced with the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen in the darkness at the back of a tour bus, I offered a blow job instead of an I love you.” 

“What?” Dan squeaks, feeling his face flush and hiding the urge to cover it with his palms. Phil had called him beautiful. Here, in this calm and non-sexual space.

“I want you. To be mine, and for me to be yours. I don’t want rules between us.”

To say Dan is shocked is an understatement, He barely knows how to take it all but he’s saved having to figure it out when Phil continues.

“No, no that’s not true, maybe sometimes I want rules. Sometimes I want to tell you what to do and take you apart and make you listen but only ever in there,” he nods towards the bed, “never out here. And I want us to agree to them together, I want you to submit to them because you _want_ to, not because you think there’s no other way to have me. And if you don’t want that at all… we don’t have to do any of that.”

Dan still can’t speak, because for all his articulation and extensive vocabulary, he is at a complete loss for anything he can say right now. 

“And I want mornings like at the hotel. Soft and just us. I don’t want rules all the time, but sometimes, but only if you want to, and I just… ” 

He swipes a thumb over Dan’s cheekbone and Dan turns his head into it slightly.

“You’re so gorgeous I can barely stand it sometimes. Do you never catch me staring? I felt for sure you’d notice, I tried to stop it, I tried to shove it down so that you wouldn’t see…Dan, I just want you. Do you… Do you think you’d want me too?”

He isn’t crying, he tells himself, not really. But his face is wet as Phil brings his lips down close, hovering only centimeters away, still waiting for Dan to agree. 

Dan seals the deal. He rocks forward on his toes, meeting Phil’s mouth with a breathy sigh that comes out shaky and broken. 

“I want you,” he says into the gaps of their kiss, breaking only to re-position, to find the ways he can press himself into Phil further. “Of course I fucking want you.” 

Phil’s hand in on his waist then, winding around him and pulling him up flush against him. They’re kissing without care, pushing and insistent in the ways they are trying to find purchase. It’s a mess, but it’s the first act without boundaries and Dan lets it roll over him. 

Phil is the first to break for air, but only because Dan is careless with his own oxygen supply when given unfettered access to Phil’s mouth. Instead Phil pauses, forehead rested against him and eyes closed. His chest rises and falls a little rapidly, and he drags in a breath through his nose as if steeling himself. 

“On the bed.” 

Dan gasps at Phil’s deep tone. It’s perfect, and he wants to, but he doesn’t go obediently and alone. Instead, he slips his fingers in to Phil’s and tugs him along as well, settling on to the bed, letting Phil tip and fall on top of him. They land a little heavily and Dan feels the air knock out of him, but he can’t find it in him to care when Phil’s lips find their way to his throat. 

Phil is set in his task. Running his tongue and teeth over Dan’s pulsepoint in a way that is torturous. Dan shoves a hand into the back of Phil’s hair and tips his head back, allowing Phil more access to suck on the sensitive flesh. 

“Tell me what to do,” Dan whispers, it sounds like a request rather than a quest for guidance. 

“Dan I…” Phil lifts his head to stare into Dan’s eyes. “Are you sure? We don’t have to do any of that.” 

“Phil.” Dan reprimands. “I hereby safely, sanely, and wholeheartedly consent for you to tell me what to do. I want it. Make me… yours.” 

Phil looks overcome. Staring at Dan as though he is something precious. Quietly, he seeks out Dan’s hand, trailing a palm firmly down his arm and, in a gesture so well known that it makes Dan shudder thinking of all the other time’s he’s done it, curls fingers tightly around Dan’s wrist. 

He flexes and pulls, so that Dan’s arm is stretched over his head and Phil presses firmly in request for it to stay. He repeats the motion on the other side, crossing Dan’s wrists over each other and wrapping them in one restrictive fist. 

“Stop and it stops,” he says into Dan’s mouth before claiming it again. 

“Stop and it stops,” Dan smiles at him when they part, nodding to show he understands. 

And its different this time, when Phil holds him still and runs a hand under his shirt to flick a thumb over his nipple. Dan moans, never particularly sensitive there but relishing the feeling of being at Phil’s mercy. It’s given now, not taken. It’s Dan handing over the reigns because he wants to, glancing up to meet Phil’s eyes and letting things like _trust_ and _adoration_ run through his head, because it’s the only definition he’ll allow himself to give to the expression he sees there. 

Phil skims his hand upwards, dragging Dan’s t-shirt so that he can duck his head down and press his mouth to Dan’s stomach. He peppers kisses there, random and haphazard so that Dan never knows where the next one will land. Its reverent, as if Phil wants to catalogue every inch of him. He pauses only to suck a red mark into Dan’s hip and then look at it, cocking his head. 

“So pretty,” he murmurs. 

Dan can’t help the whine in his throat and the way his hips buck up slightly. 

“Pretty yet needy,” Phil laughs. “Come on, off with this.” 

He releases Dan’s hands and tugs at his shirt. He hasn’t lost circulation, Phil’s grip had been firm but not cutting off the blood flow to his hands, but his fingers fumble with the material of his t-shirt anyway as he tries to remove it.

Eventually he’s shirtless and Phil is running a hand over his collarbone, a single finger dipping into the hollow of it. Phil shifts, slotting his hips to Dan’s perfectly, pressing the hardness of him against the hardness of Dan. It loosens another groan from Dan who, more quickly than he would really like, is already starting to feel wound up. The pressure is delicious, sending sparks of something into his abdomen and pooling there.

He knows he’s giving himself over, but he’s charged and impatient, he wants more of Phil, more skin more heat more of him pressed up close. He hesitates briefly, wondering if he might be allowed to take a more active part in the proceedings but decides that yes, this isn’t one-sided anymore, he doesn’t have to take only what Phil gives him in the small amounts. He can indulge himself.

Dan reaches out to tug at the hem of Phil’s shirt, rucking it upwards and dragging his knuckles along the hot skin beneath it. Phil smiles at his boldness, but doesn’t seem put off by Dan initiating the contact. Instead, reaches behind his head with one hand and pulls it off, Dan’s hands chasing it upwards, gliding palms up Phil’s sides and onto his chest. He can’t help it when he finally reaches Phil’s shoulders, gripping slightly and using the leverage to rock upwards into Phil’s awaiting erection. It isn’t nearly enough friction, but it feels amazing anyway. 

“Calm down,” Phil warns, “We’re not nearly started yet. I’m going to take my time.” 

And he does. Dropping kisses and running hands all over Dan’s skin. Reaching his jeans on his travels but making quick, if not comical work of yanking them from him where they catch on his ankles. He skims a hand up Dan’s calf, cupping around the back of his knee to pull his leg up and over his hip. 

The hand continues, pressing into the flesh of his thigh, dipping across the sensitive patch of skin at his hip. It’s slow, teasing, less of the violent push and pull he’s used to. It doesn’t feel like a stolen few moments or a dirty secret they have to rush through. Phil has Dan now, completely, and he’s savouring it. 

It turns out Dan doesn’t much mind being savoured. He’s breathy and mewling by the time Phil is running a hand across the waistband of his underwear and easing them down too. Could almost yell in relief when his cock is finally freed, but he doesn’t. 

“Patience,” Phil reminds him as Dan bucks up yet again when the contact he’d been expecting doesn’t come. 

“Don’t want to,” Dan drawls, letting his voice come whiney and pleading. He looks up through lashes to Phil, making his eyes round and innocent. “I can’t wait anymore Phil, I want you.” 

The effect is instantaneous. He watches as Phil’s pupils dilate and he can see the moment Phil almost decides to relent. He feels powerful in the knowledge that he can do that. He has this, the effect of him compliant and wanting is something he’s allowing Phil to witness, its his decision, his power.

For some reason that makes it all that much hotter. They’re both playing this game, and setting the rules, and following them or not depending on their own preference. It’s intoxicating. 

Phil doesn’t give in, but it’s a near thing. Instead he rocks back to sit on his heels. 

“I should make you wait even longer for that,” he scolds. 

“God, please don’t.” 

Phil considers it. “Maybe. Depends, how good can you be?”

“I can be good,” Dan nods, “I can be so good for you.” 

“Can you be patient?” 

Dan groans and nods, because he thinks he can. 

“Good, Dan. That’s good.” Phil doesn’t touch Dan. Instead it goes for his own belt buckle. “Watch.”

Phil lets his cock sit in his palm for a moment after he releases it. Shimmying out of his jeans and underwear so that they are both naked. Usually Dan would feel vulnerable and exposed but Phil catches his eyes and keep him there, captivated, and Dan can’t feel anything other than the shudder that runs through him.

Phil’s long slender fingers are curved into a loose fist, pumping lazily, and Dan’s eyes track the movement hungrily. Phil’s chest is starting to flush with arousal and Dan’s mouth droops and his tongue lolls out, flicking into the corner of his mouth. 

“Want to taste?” Phil asks, already knee-walking up the bed and straddling Dan’s thighs. He comes closer and closer, until he’s hover over Dan’s straining cock, close enough that Dan can feel the heat of him, but offering no relief.

In lieu of answering Dan lets the pointed tip of his tongue lap at the blunt head of Phil’s cock, held in his hand but pressed insistently at Dan’s lips. 

Phil groans slightly and Dan knows he’s just as wound up as he is. Dan sinks fingers into Phil’s hip and pulls him closer in one swift movement, opening his mouth and letting Phil sink into the tight heat of him. That elicits an even louder moan from Phil that Dan echoes back, letting sound escape around the stretch of his lips. The hand no holding Phil’s hip steady closes around the parts of Phil’s length his mouth can’t reach and he bobs his head, figuring out a rhythm quickly. He varies between sucking and swirling his tongue and he can feel the muscles in Phil’s abdomen going tight and the way his hips are trying not to thrust.

He remembers the last time they were like this. At the hotel. Dan had wanted to get lost in it, to drown out everything in his head, to let Phil ruin him. It had been frantic and dangerous and unhealthy. Now Dan doesn’t want to zone out, he wants to stay here in this moment, feeling Phil’s hands scrabbling at his shoulders to stay upright, hearing his panting breaths and choked out moans. His head is filled with Phil but it isn’t a temporary fix to a world of anguish, it’s them. He and Phil. Nothing else seems to matter now they’ve settled that.

It’s not long before Phil has to put a hand in his hair and ease him back. Dan pulls back at looks up at him, using the same doe-eyed look he knows must being doing all sorts to Phil when coupled with how wet and red his mouth will be. 

“You’re good at that,” Phil praises him, “Possibly too good.” 

“Do I get a reward then?” Dan asks cheekily, smirking slightly. 

“I think you’ve earned it.” 

Phil backs up, settling once again between Dan’s spread thighs. Phil doesn't need to prompt him this time for Dan to bend one leg and position it up over Phil’s hip, flexing his ankle to tug him nearer.

“What kind of reward do you want?” Phil asks, voice husky and low. 

“I want you,” Dan whispers.

Phil dips in for a kiss, and lets his hips drop down so that his length drags along Dan’s. The contact after so much denial makes Dan buck and sink his fingers into Phil’s upper arm. 

“Shit.” 

“Like that?” Phil says, rolling his hips to apply more pressure, it’s slick with Dan’s saliva still, wetly sliding together. It won’t last, but for now it's fucking heaven.

“S’good” Dan manages, “But not quite what I meant.” 

“I know what you meant.” 

“Good.” 

Phil punctuates the conversation with another circle of his hips and Dan feels his eyes roll back into his head. It’s all hot skin and building sweat. Phil is pressing kisses on his jaw and his mouth and his collarbone. They are gripping each other close, connected at all points, it feels different this time. 

“Do you have..?” 

“Drawer.” 

It should be awkward when they have to pause for Phil to gather what he needs, but Dan is staring at Phil, mind wandering back to before, marvelling at the contrast. He doesn’t feel nervous, exactly. Just a thrum of excitement vibrating under his skin, the anticipation. 

Phil makes quick work of lubing up his fingers before coming closer again. Their eyes meet, unwavering and electric as his hand ghosts down between them. 

“Are you sure?” Phil asks, the nerves making his voice shake. 

Dan brings his hands to Phil’s face, sliding them to cup his jaw on either side. Without words he brings their mouths together, it’s slow and deep and he tries to push just how sure he is into Phil’s meeting tongue. 

“I’m sure,” he nods when they part, “Are you?” 

Phil finds his lips again, quick and reassuring. “I am.” 

With that he reaches lower to press his slick finger against Dan’s entrance. 

Phil coaches Dan through it, murmuring about how good he looks, how tight he is. Dan, for his part, moans and thrusts his hips down on Phil’s fingers, wanting more, quicker, faster, harder. By the time Phil has three fingers buried inside of him, mouth working on his neck with licks, nips, drawing the odd red mark into his skin that Dan wishes could stay, just for a bit, so that he has something left of this once it’s over. But he’ll have Phil, he reminds himself, this isn’t all he gets this time.

“M’ready” Dan slurs his words mumbled, unformed and blurry. It’s only a testament to how wound up he is, his cock hard and leaking on his stomach with Phil’s weight only giving a slight pressure of relief. But it isn’t enough, he wants Phil now, closer and inside of him. 

Phil already has the condom in hand, shedding the packet with his one dry hand and his teeth. He’s pulled away from Dan’s gaze momentarily as he rolls it on, taking care to ensure that it’s done properly, there can be no room for awkward mistakes or comical slips later. It would be just like them though, if there were. 

When he’s ready he lets his hand smear whatever lube remains on his hand over the condom, having used too much that everything is sliding, wet and easy. Dan appreciates the care Phil is taking in preventing him from hurting. 

“Come on,” Dan urges, “Please.” 

The moment Phil lines himself up and they catch each other’s eye is the first moment Dan feels nervous. He realises that he’s half expecting Phil to say stop, like he had before. But Phil holds his gaze and pushes forward, dipping inside Dan finally. 

Phil makes the most amazing sounds of combined relief and pleasure, it’s a cracked rumble in his throat and it makes Dan’s legs jump and wrap around his waist, wanting him closer, wanting him to make the sound again. 

“You feel so…” 

He doesn’t finish his sentence but inches into Dan tantalisingly slowly until he’s seated within him. Dan can feel that stretch of intrusion, it’s intimate and strange. He lets his body adjust, they both do, pausing for a moment. 

It feels like a bubble of emotion in his chest. It swells and shifts, pressing at him. He’s glad, for the first time, that this didn’t happen before. That Phil had saved it until they’d resolved things between them. Because now, though Phil is gripping his hip in a proprietary way that has Dan reaching his hands back over his head in supplication, it feels equal.

“I’m going to move now,” Phil warns before doing just that. 

Dan feels the drag of him on the way out, catching on the tight walls of him, sliding through lube and sweat before slamming back in, jolting him upwards against the firm grip of Phil’s hands on his hips. 

“Shit, yes, like that.” Dan babbles.

“Yeah,” Phil agrees distractedly, “Yeah, god Dan, you feel amazing. I--” 

He lets his head drop to Dan’s throat, biting harshly in a way that might leave a mark, but it seems that he’s past caring. 

He finds a pace after that, still engaged and filled with that wide emotion but also hot and rapid and fevered. He leans back so that he is a beautiful column of pale flesh stretched out above Dan. He scoops hands under Dan’s hips and lifts him, settling him further into his lap so that Dan is arched upwards, held aloft only by Phil’s arms gripped tightly on his hips and by the seat made of his thighs. 

Phil’s head is thrown back as he thrusts quickly, varying between long drags where he almost pulls out entirely, and short thrusts where he shifts all the way in and rocks his hips impossibly forward to push deep within Dan’s walls. He finds a perfect angle that has Dan crying out, jack knifing forward, hands wild and scrabbling for purchase and finding nothing.

Instead, Phil heaves him upward with a strength that is somewhat surprising. Managing to move his own legs out from underneath him to settle Dan on top of him, face to face. 

Dan claws his arms around Phil’s shoulders, the disrupted rhythm of his thrusting leaving Dan chasing his pleasure by lifting himself up and dropping back down hard onto Phil’s cock. Their mouths are close now, meeting again and again but not quite meeting up. Not that it matters, when Phil is still moving his hips upward into Dan and Dan is riding, rocking his hips, thighs straining and a flush appearing on his chest. 

Phil reaches up to gather Dan’s hands behind him again, curving his back into a taut arch, back and away, tugging on his wrists. It changes the angle again, finding that spot that makes Dan cry out. He lets his head roll back, shoulders straining under Phil’s grip as they continue to move together. 

“Come on Bear, you like riding me, hm?” 

The nickname again. This time instead of making him freeze it tinges his cheeks pink and makes him bite down to stop the obscene flurry of words threatening to jump from him. He can feel himself growing close, the violent pool of pleasure wound tight in his groin, his cock barely touched but close nevertheless. 

“Phil, oh god.” he settles on instead, rolling his hips uselessly, his restricted movements allowing him to control only a small portion of it. 

Phil is the one slamming into him now, slightly uncoordinated as his own orgasm also approaches. 

“M’close.” Dan warns, “I just can’t…” 

Phil hums knowingly and wraps a helpful hand around Dan’s cock. It’s almost too much for Dan who, between the tight pull on his shoulders, and the mind altering way Phil is sliding in and out of him, is already pretty close to coming apart. 

“I’m close too,” Phil says, working his hand faster on Dan’s length. “Come on.” 

In the final moments Phil releases Dan’s wrists and pulls him close. Dan winds his arms around Phil and lets himself go, grinding down on his cock and up into his hand. The air is filled with the loud sound of flesh on flesh and the way Dan is keening, panting and writhing. 

“Fuck, Phil, Fuck!”

It’s the only warning Phil gets before Dan is coming, clenching around him and spurting hot liquid over his fist. So lost in it, Dan only faintly registers Phil coming too, working his hips deeper into him in a final thrust that threatens to topple them both. But his arm is securely around Dan’s waist, locking them together as they both come down from their highs.

“Shit,” Dan pants as the echo of their combined screams dies on the walls of his bedroom. “That was…” 

“The best thing ever?” Phil replies, equally breathless. He drops his forehead to Dan’s chest and Dan lets his chin rest on the crown of his head. 

“Yes.” 

“Should move” Phil sighs.

“Probably.”

Phil chuckles and Dan feel the jump of his deflating cock still inside him. 

“Okay,” he relents, climbing up, letting Phil’s cock slide out of him. The sudden emptiness feels strange for a moment but he adjusts quickly. He reaches over, into his drawer again and pulls out a crinkled pack of wet wipes. They’re the same ones from the bus, he notes, smiling faintly. 

They clean up in silence, the condom being disposed of quickly before they settle under Dan’s duvet. They’re still naked, and it’s the middle of the afternoon, but they’re lazy and soft, spent and happy. 

They shift to be closer, Phil tugging Dan under the crook of his arm so that his head is pillowed on Phil’s shoulder. Dan slings an arm over Phil’s waist and sighs, long and evenly. 

“I don’t think I can possibly move for a bit.” Dan says, “I ache all over.” 

Phil cups a hand around Dan’s shoulder and kneads it, “Your shoulders okay?” 

“Yeah,” Dan nods, his cheek moving against Phil’s skin, “Aching but… you know, in a good way.” 

“Okay.” He drops a kiss to Dan’s forehead. “Good.” 

“This is different.” Dan says after a while. 

“It is, isn’t it?” Phil muses, finger drawing circles on Dan’s shoulder blade. “Do you mind?” 

“Mind?” Dan scoffs, “Shut up.”

“Yeah, it’s quite good.” 

“It’s alright.” Dan shrugs, curving his mouth into a smirk. 

“Hey!” Phil swats at him aimlessly, landing haphazardly on Dan’s arm. 

“Fine, fine.” Dan agrees, giggling. “I like it.”

“We need to get lunch though, and shower, and… we can’t stay here all day.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because we can’t,” Phil insists.

“It’s pyjama week.” 

“You’re not wearing pyjamas.” 

“Are you seriously complaining about that? Cus I can put some on.” 

“Don’t you dare.” Phil rolls them over to pin Dan to the bed.

They’re laughing and kissing and Dan thinks it’s ridiculous that they can swing between intimate and joking so quickly. They’re still best friends, and that’s just perfect. 

“Lunch though” Phil points out after a few minutes. 

“You’re right,” Dan allows, “worked up an appetite anyway.” 

“I was going to get lunch earlier, when you swanned in with your horrible coffee.” 

“Was it horrible? I didn’t drink it.” 

“It was horrible.” Phil pouts.

“You didn’t drink it either,” Dan reasons, “...Are you… were you jealous? Is that why you were mad?”

“I don’t share.” Phil reminds him. 

“No one is asking you to.” 

Phil kisses him, long and lingering. “Good.” 

“Lunch then. And then… TV?”

“Can we bring the duvet?” 

Dan laughs, “Sure.” 

They reluctantly shift from the warm confines of the bed. Neither want to pull clothes back up, and Phil only looks mildly disappointed when Dan reaches for pyjamas instead. Dan swats at him, leaning away from his grasping hands to step into his jogging bottoms. 

They’re in each other’s space now. They always have been, but it’s different now, a sense of being _allowed_ and _wanted_ hanging over them. It won’t always be like this, they’ll have to manufacture that distance again for the sake of the cameras, the prying eyes. Dan wonders how he’s going to go back to pretending once pyjama week is over. The thrill and intoxication of finally meaning what they do to each other now, it’s bound to show, he barely knows how to keep the smile off his face.

His only reassurance is that if they’ve been keeping it from each other for so long, perhaps they can find a way to keep it from those they don’t want to know. It will be easier, knowing they no longer have to hide from each other. That they are finally, finally in this together. They haven’t discussed it, but he’s pretty sure he and Phil are on the same page when it comes to that stuff. Not yet, they’re not letting it get out yet.

Phil finally relents and lets Dan get dressed, walking unashamedly butt naked to his own room to retrieve his own pyjamas. He leaves his clothes strewn about Dan’s floor, Dan notices, and he rolls his eyes fondly before picking them up. A hazard of dating Phil Lester, he wagers, is that he will be the same way with clothes as he is with socks, only now he has ample excuse to leave them all over Dan’s bedroom as well as their shared spaces.

_Dating_ he suddenly realises. Dating. He pauses with Phil’s t-shirt in his hand and lets the rush of that finally hit him. It’s heady, he feels drunk on it. That wide emotion blooming in his chest again so that he has to swallow against it. 

“Coming, love?” Phil says, appearing at his door fully dressed in an offensive array of bright colours. It comes so easily from him and Dan wonders how hard he’s been having to work to control all of that, to keep it all locked away. 

“Yes,” Dan says, chucking Phil’s t-shirt back onto the floor thinking he can clean up later. Neither of them have to hide it any more so as he heaves the duvet up over his shoulder, he allows himself to stop Phil in the corridor and press a kiss against his mouth before moving past him. Because he can.

They wind up with sandwiches, huddled together under the duvet on the couch. Debating, as usual, what to watch. 

“Anime?” Phil suggests. 

“Subtitles.” Dan points out. 

“So?” 

“Won’t be able to concentrate.” He kisses to Phil again to demonstrate his point. 

“Ah.” Phil smiles, “I understand. Though eventually we are going to have to work out how to not get distracted. We can’t go without anime indefinitely.” 

“I’ll get used to it eventually,” Dan assures him, “Just… not yet.” 

Phil nods. “Something we’ve seen before then?”

“Hmm.” 

“Angel?” 

The suggestion is kind of perfect. Buffy started this whole thing, so why not?

They put it on and it’s the comfortable routine they’re used to. Letting episode after episode play, only this time they’re distracted. The light dies at the windows as they drift hands over each other. More than once it ends up heated, Dan pressed underneath Phil on the small space of their couch. He’s rutting up into him, winding his arms around Phil’s body and feeling the sharp drag of Phil’s teeth on his neck. 

“Shit,” Dan pants, letting his hands drift down to land on Phil’s backside, using the grip to push their groins together hard. 

“Mmm,” Phil hums, grinding again of his own accord. “We need to stop. This is ridiculous.” 

“You’re ridiculous.” Dan pouts, “We can do what we want.” 

“You’re insatiable,” Phil chuckles, pausing his hips and settling him.

“And?” 

“You’re right,” Phil says, “No complaints from me. I just…” 

“What?” 

“Do we need to talk about what all this means?” 

“We’ve done talking. A lot of talking. You want me. I want you. Sometimes we’re gonna get kinky and have some awesome rules we both agree to… what more is there to talk about?” 

Phil laughs and Dan can feels him shake at every point they’re connected. 

“Nothing,” Phil says, “I guess nothing. Except…” 

“Except?” 

“I love you.” 

Dan stops moving, lets his hands fall slack at Phil’s waist and swallows heavily. The bubble of something big that been resting in his chest bursts.

“Should I not have said that?” Phil asks, face painted in worry. “I’m sorry I--” 

Dan kisses him. Hard. He presses his tongue to join with Phil’s winding them together closer and closer until they are both breathless and twisted. 

“I love you too,” he says, voice louder than he intended, rushed and joyous. “This is really real isn’t it? The you and me thing. The real deal.” 

“I hope so,” Phil says, “I intend it to be.” 

“I’m not sure I know how to do that,” Dan admits, “I never have before.”

“Me either.” 

“Well… then I guess we’ll figure it out.” 

“Yeah,” Phil whispers, “I guess we will.”

Figuring it out turns out to be easier than they expected. The idea of having no rules is appealing, but, it turns out, unrealistic.They do have rules, some spoken, some not.

Some are big like _I will always be there for you_. They don’t say it out loud but they do communicate it often. It’s made clear with a hand on a shoulder, a friendly bump of the hip. It’s not in question now, they will always be there for each other, whatever happens.

_You’re mine_ is a constant. It is mostly unspoken save for when one of them feels threatened by the emergence of someone new, someone who doesn’t know, someone who might flirt or otherwise try to engage. Then it is the presence at the other’s side, a claiming hand propped casually against the other that leaves the offender uncertain as to the exact nature of their relationship. Later, it’s mouthed into skin and whispered into ears, a litany of reassurance. It’s not really a rule, so much as it is a promise. 

There are, of course, those rules that Phil sets. The ones he whispers into Dan’s ear as they come together, in a voice that is filthy and deep, they send shivers down his spine. Save for one, Dan never knows what these will be, but he enjoys it every time. He doesn’t have to comply, he knows that now, and sometimes he breaks them just to see what Phil will do.

There is only one that Phil insists on. _Stop and it stops._ Dan rarely uses it, but Phil reminds him of it every time.

There are other ones, tiny ones, ones they break often. _It’s your turn to get up early for the postman_ for instance, or _you have to stop eating my cereal_. These are rules that get laid down but rarely followed. No one cares, though they pretend to.

The trickiest ones are the ones they outline for what is acceptable on camera. But even these are negotiated with ease, discussed and agreed. What to edit out, what not to. These ones change all the time as they become bolder, more sure.

These ones don’t feel like restrictions in the way the ones Dan had made up did, they’re precautions, some protection for what they’re building. They are necessary for the moment, armour against the intrusion on something they want to keep for themselves. Just for now.

But one day, they both imagine in those quiet, still moments wrapped up in each other, they won’t need those rules either.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how often this will be updated, but I'll try.
> 
> Come follow me on Tumblr [@AgingPhangirl](http://agingphangirl.tumblr.com) and Twitter [@Agingfangirl](http://twitter.com/agingfangirl) to prod me.


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